Studio: international art (46.1909)

Charles Shannon

them. A sale of Japanese prints had been an.
nounced, and I Autolycus-like, strolled into the
auction-room soon after the dispersal had begun.
The prints, a frowzy-looking lot, were tied up in
bundles of twenty-five. I bought three of the
bundles for a ridiculous price, and was wondering
how I should convey the awkward purchase home,
when suddenly I was vouchsafed an object-lesson
in the method of the true collector. Already I
had observed two young men who looked like
amateurs in the auction-world. One seemed
feverishly active, mentally not physically—he, I
learned later, was Charles Ricketts; the other
appeared to garb his interest under a look of sweet
indifference—be was Charles Shannon. Plainly
they knew precisely what they wanted and what
they were waiting for; they did not buy the
bundles as I had done, as if the prints were apples
and one pound weight was as good as another-
No, they waited for one particular bundle which,
presumably, they had examined beforehand. When
it was dumped upon the table, the sweet indifference
of Charles Shannon vanished, and Charles Ricketts
ineffectually tried to conceal his feverish eagerness.
He bid quickly, short,
sharp bids, while his com-
panion looked on with
anxiously benignant ap-
proval. The hammer fell.

The feverish Charles
seized the bundle and
cut the string. His long,
quick fingers flitted
through the items, picked
out one print, and instan-
taneously the benignant
Charles indicated another.

The remaining prints were
tossed aside, left on the
table, the rejected of the
collectors, and the twain
departed hastily with their
two treasures. I conveyed
my three bundles home
in a cab, made my choice,
and gave the remnant to
a Philistine for a wedding
present. Which was the
better way ?

The Shannon-Ricketts
companionship began as
far back as 1884 in a
wood-engraving school at
Lambeth. In those in-

auspicious surroundings the two artists met, each
purposing to earn a living by wood-engraving.
As process work has now almost entirely sup-
planted it, the companions would have been to-day
among the unemployed had they not possessed
reserves of talent beyond the equipment necessary
for the honourable but unremunerative craft
of wood-engraving. Indeed, Mr. Shannon had
already become a painter. While still an art-student
he exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery; and he was
also a member of the original Pastel Society. But
the labour in the wood-engraving~ class was not
thr'Own away—far from it. “ Once,” sang a poet,
“ once, from the ashes of my heart arose a
blossom.” “Five times,” might the companions
say or sing, “ five times from the lethargic routine
of that wood-engraving class arose our Dial”
known to the elect as “an occasional publication
edited by C. S. Ricketts and C. H. Shannon to
counteract the ill-effects of compulsory book illus-
tration.” The first number was published in 1889,
the second three years later in a different size and
binding. Three more numbers were issued in
successive years, and then the hands of The Dial

“ THE SCULPTOR (MRS. SCOTT) ” BY CHARLES SHANNON

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