Studio: international art (70.1917)

Graphic Arts Exhibition at the Roy at Academy

ment are those of Mr. Percival Gaskell, Mr.
Frederick Marriott, Mr. E. M. Wilson, Mr. T.
Huson, Mr. A. C. Meyer, and Mr. W. Flyde.

An extremely attractive section is that de-
voted to Lithography in its modern artistic
practice. We have here ample opportunity for
estimating
the extra-
ord inarily
wide range
of the me-
dium's ca-
pacities and
sympathies,
when we
turn from
the exqui-
site delicacy
of the four
lovely litho-
graphs of
Whistler to
the broad,
vigorous
handling of

the method in such forcible imaginative
draughtsmanship as Mr. E. J. Sullivan's, or
the realism of Mr. Hartrick's; or if we look
from the dainty charm of Mr. Claude Shepper-
son’s Stepped she not with grace entrancing ? or
the delicate poetry of his pathetic Fields of
Flanders to the bold actualities of Mr. John
Copley’s artistic prints. Using this medium, so
spontaneously responsive to personal expression
and the moods of temperament, we find a num-
ber of artists of remarkably vivid personality.
Here is the President of the Senefelder Club,
Mr. Joseph Pennell, showing us a group of his
wonderful studies in the munition factories, in
which among the furnaces and the engines of
power he sees infinite pictorial beauty. Here
is that graphic poet Mr. Charles Shannon, who
long since realized the artistic charm and value
of lithography for lovely fantasy, and made
himself its master ; and here is that younger
master of the medium, Mr. G. Spencer Pryse,
who uses it to express a very human vision
with a powerful and beautiful vitality and an
entirely personal style. Then Miss Ethel
Gabain—how essentially artistic is her choice
of subject, how truly pictorial her treatment,
and with what sureness her chalk commands
the tones upon the stone ! Her blacks have a
74

peculiar richness. It is well to see again such
classics of the medium as Legros’ Tennyson
and Manning, masterly portraits both; but
one may welcome also such sensitive portraiture
as that of Miss Flora Lion. There are charac-
teristic prints by Mr. D. A. Veresmith, Mr.

J. Walter
West, and
Mr. Kerr
Lawson,
while Mr.
F. Ernest
Jackson, in
a varied
choice of
s u b j e c t,
shows his
wide know-
ledge of
lithographic
technique,
and his com-
mand of its
practice.
Among the
things to be enjoyed in this room not the
least are Mr. William Nicholson’s Chicot,
Baron Munchausen, and Miss Fotheringay and
Captain Costigan. Delightful things these;
but why are they not among the colour-prints,
with Mr. Nicholson’s coloured wood-blocks ? Of
that section I do not propose to speak now, for it
is so interesting to see the art of the colour-print
at last admitted to the Royal Academy that the
subject deserves an article to itself.

In a very choice little collection of woodcuts,
showing how the art of the wood-engraver has
been revived for original expression, readers of
The Studio will recognize the exquisite fan-
tasies of Mr. Charles Shannon and Mr. Sturge
Moore which they have lately seen reproduced
in these pages, as well as familiar prints by
Mr. Sydney Lee and Mr. Noel Rooke; but
they will see also beautiful and masterly wood-
cuts, instinct with poetic imagination, by Mr.
Charles Ricketts, who has done more than
any one to bring about the revival of original
wood-engraving. Very poetic and artistic also
are the woodcuts of Mr. James Guthrie, but in
a very different manner is an important new
print, The Village Street, by Mr. Lee, while
more in the old chiaroscuro style is The Stranded
Schooner of Miss Mary Berridge.