Studio: international art (49.1910)

The Arts and Crafts Society s Exhibition

SEALS DESIGNED BY NEVILL R. WILKINSON AND
ENGRAVED BY CECIL THOMAS

manship would result from the exhibitions he pro-
poses, but they might nevertheless be of great value.

Failing the London County Council, might not
the Royal Academy be induced to do something
for the craftsmen and designers? The Academy
has lately been showing signs of grace by proposing
to hold next winter an exhibition “ of Architec-
ture and of the Fine Arts as structurally applied
to Architecture.” The transition from such an
exhibition to one of Arts and'Crafts should not
be difficult.

workmanship while offering
to the public some guide in
taste.”

Perhaps the London County
Council, whose schools owe
so much directly and indi-
rectly to the Arts and Crafts
Society, might be induced to
make the experiment of hold-
ing periodic exhibitions of
this nature. Something of
the kind has already been
attempted by them—but only
in a very small and limited
fashion—at the Council’s
Central School in Southamp-
ton Row. Mr. Crane may be
over optimistic in thinking
that the restoration of a living
tradition in design and crafts-

PRESENTATION CASKET DESIGNED BY FLORENCE H. STEELE

EXECUTED BY H. H. PLANTO

The present exhibition at the
New Gallery is chiefly remarkable
for the high level of workmanship
displayed in nearly all its classes.
There are very few eccentricities.
The so-called “new art” has appa-
rently gone for good, and only
here and there among the jewellery
are the faintest traces of its one-
time influence to be seen. Gone
too are those strange examples of
cabinet-making that in the younger
days of the Society found their
way into the exhibitions, where
they were marks for the sarcasms
of unbelievers who said unkind
things about the “ rabbit-hutch ”
school of furniture design. The
furniture at the Arts and Crafts
cannot truthfully be described as
strikingly original, but most of it
is eminently pleasant and of the