Mr. Geoffrey BlackweWs Collection of Modern Pictures
M
R. GEOFFREY BLACKWELL'S A critique of Mr. Wilson Steer's exhibition at
COLLECTION OF MODERN the Goupil Gallery in 1909 aroused Mr. Blackwell's
curiosity. He went. He responded to the call of
nature, as expressed in the pictures. He felt in
PICTURES. BY J. B. MANSON.
The collector of works of contemporary art is them an intenser quality of light and air than he
unusual enough to be a study of interest in him- had previously experienced in any of the ordinary
self. Art, that is to say, which is the painter's paintings which are commonly to be met with in
personal expression, born of his emotion, and not the social world, decorating the drawing-rooms
the organised production of pictures by popular of Mayfair with their empty triviality. He ac-
painters with which most of our art institutions are quired two of the pictures, and henceforth he was
associated. To have the courage of one's con- launched on a troublous sea, the mere charting
victions is but one degree more remarkable than, and navigation of which were a joy not unmingled
in these days, to have convictions at all; but it is with difficulties. He relied, as the genuine col-
surely the salient characteristic of the kind of lector in such a case must rely, on his own feelings,
collector we have in mind. It may prove a force Being on the threshold of a larger tuition he
leading to dubious investment from the vulgar wisely contented himself with advancing for awhile
point of view, but it has, anyhow, recurring on the course he had already chosen, with the
moments of ample recompense and occasionally, result that the Blackwell collection now contains
as in the case of Durand-Ruel and the French a remarkable number of the finer paintings of
Impressionists, a quite solidly substantial reward. Mr. Wilson Steer.
It is only some five years since Mr. Geoffrey A collection of contemporary art is, according
Blackwell took the first step on the path which to the degree of catholicity of the collector, an
leads to distinction. His preliminary tentative epitome in some measure of the art of the time;
movement was on familiar ground, though even or, it is more specially a presentation of the work
then of a higher kind
than usual, eluding the
mediocre. It resulted at
the outset in the acquisition
of a Stark and a Vicat
vention, which was chiefly
remarkable. portrait of Geoffrey blackwell, esq. oil painting by glyn philpot
271
M
R. GEOFFREY BLACKWELL'S A critique of Mr. Wilson Steer's exhibition at
COLLECTION OF MODERN the Goupil Gallery in 1909 aroused Mr. Blackwell's
curiosity. He went. He responded to the call of
nature, as expressed in the pictures. He felt in
PICTURES. BY J. B. MANSON.
The collector of works of contemporary art is them an intenser quality of light and air than he
unusual enough to be a study of interest in him- had previously experienced in any of the ordinary
self. Art, that is to say, which is the painter's paintings which are commonly to be met with in
personal expression, born of his emotion, and not the social world, decorating the drawing-rooms
the organised production of pictures by popular of Mayfair with their empty triviality. He ac-
painters with which most of our art institutions are quired two of the pictures, and henceforth he was
associated. To have the courage of one's con- launched on a troublous sea, the mere charting
victions is but one degree more remarkable than, and navigation of which were a joy not unmingled
in these days, to have convictions at all; but it is with difficulties. He relied, as the genuine col-
surely the salient characteristic of the kind of lector in such a case must rely, on his own feelings,
collector we have in mind. It may prove a force Being on the threshold of a larger tuition he
leading to dubious investment from the vulgar wisely contented himself with advancing for awhile
point of view, but it has, anyhow, recurring on the course he had already chosen, with the
moments of ample recompense and occasionally, result that the Blackwell collection now contains
as in the case of Durand-Ruel and the French a remarkable number of the finer paintings of
Impressionists, a quite solidly substantial reward. Mr. Wilson Steer.
It is only some five years since Mr. Geoffrey A collection of contemporary art is, according
Blackwell took the first step on the path which to the degree of catholicity of the collector, an
leads to distinction. His preliminary tentative epitome in some measure of the art of the time;
movement was on familiar ground, though even or, it is more specially a presentation of the work
then of a higher kind
than usual, eluding the
mediocre. It resulted at
the outset in the acquisition
of a Stark and a Vicat
vention, which was chiefly
remarkable. portrait of Geoffrey blackwell, esq. oil painting by glyn philpot
271