Studio: international art (55.1912)

Mr. Spencer Pryse s Lithographs

CUSHION COVER. DESIGNED BY VALERIE PETTER, EXECUTED BY CRETE PETTER
( See preceding article )

-—like Mr. Sargent himself for instance—“ begin
again ” than reach an effect by elaborate emenda-
tion and revision.

So far as it is possible to estimate methods from
result, one is forced to think of Mr. Spencer Pryse
as a successor of Mr. Sargent in the matter of
swift, spontaneous apprehension of the characteristic
traits of his subject, and in the psychological vein
that runs through all his subjects—the choice of
portraiture and interest in the face of every person
whom he introduces into a group.

One especial feature of the lithographs which
form the contents of the portfolio which Mr. Pryse
is at present publishing through Messrs. Ernest
Brown and Phillips is the sensitiveness of line.
Such artists as Mr. C. H. Shannon have taught us
to look for this only in work upon a smaller scale
than that which Mr. Pryse affects. Mr. Pryse’s
line gains in boldness and swiftness from the size
of the plate, but he does succeed in retaining what
so few artists who work boldly and upon a large
scale in lithography do retain, namely, an in-
timacy, a caressing intimacy of line, in which no
one has been able to excel Mr. C. H. Shannon.

Nowhere in his use of the chalk does Mr. Pryse
enter the profoundly subjective field of an art like
Mr. Shannon’s; but if we look for causes in every
effect, if every form of art is derived—however un-
consciously and indirectly—we shall have to say
that Mr. Pryse’s art is derived, if somewhat mys-
teriously, from the two masters we have mentioned,
Mr. Sargent and Mr. Shannon, though in Mr.
Sargent’s case the actual medium of lithography
40

has never been used. There
is also a trace of the influence
of Brangwyn, even though un-
consciously received. These
names are of long-established
fame, Mr. Spencer Pryse is
an entirely new comer, and if
on the one hand he has
affinities with Mr. Shannon
in the quality of his line, on
the other his art seems as
highly “objective” in
character as Mr. Shannon’s
is “ subjective.” And it is,
as we have shown, imagina-
tively of a different substance
and technically upon alto-
gether another scale. But
that we have in Mr. Pryse a
lithographer likely to succeed
to a place among those who
are determining the contemporary history of this
art, will not, we think, be seriously disputed after
the opportunity we are affording for a study of his
prints.

Mr. Spencer Pryse has so far exhibited extremely
little; we do not know of any place other than
the Leicester Gallery where his plates have been
shown. They are limited in number, for he is not
a careless prolific producer with that sort of
abandon and rapidity which superficiality so easily
makes its own. The intrinsic nature of the forms
which he expresses with so gifted a touch are first
of all well appreciated by him. Behind the seerm
ing “ inevitability ” of his execution there is much
thought. The fact that this description of his
method is to be identified with the procedure of
the finest artists in reaching their results seems to
explain the highly artistic quality of his drawing.
He does not over-elaborate, he relies upon sugges-
tion, but there is nothing thin or empty in the
schemes he carries through ; on the contrary, their
distinguishing note is presence of vitality, so that
the rightly managed spacing of the composition
witnesses as eloquently to his liveliness of con-
ception as the direct and intelligent manipulation
of detail.

Mr. Pryse has not up to the present identified
himself with any particular group of artists. Neither
the Academy, the International Society, nor the
New English Art Club can claim him as their own.
He is an individualist, and he has awaited recog-
nition of his good lithography rather than de-
manded it. T. M. Wood.