Studio: international art (72.1918)

Studio- Talk

st. augustine’s priory, ealing, Middlesex

PEACOCK, BEWLAY, AND COOKE, ARCHITECTS

necessary colour being supplied by the windows,
the heads of which contain mauve and blue
panels on a dull green-and-white ground.

REVIEWS.

Thomas Woolner, R.A., Sculptor and Pod;
His Life in Letters. Written by his daughter,
Amy Woolner. (London : Chapman and Hall.)
18s. net.—Mr. Woolner, who died just a quarter
of a century ago, was one of the original
members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood,
the others being Holman Hunt, Millais, J.
Collinson, F. G. Stephens, and the two Ros-
settis ; and it was in his studio in Stanhope
Street that the Brethren used to meet in the late
'forties and discuss art and poetry to the
accompaniment of tea and tobacco. Though
then only just over twenty, he had already
firmly laid the foundations of his subsequent
highly successful career, which was only inter-
rupted by a voyage to Australia and a vain
endeavour to court fortune at the gold diggings
in the early 'fifties. Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle, the
poet Tennyson and his wife, Robert Browning,
Coventry Patmore, and other people of note
were already among his friends ere he embarked
on this adventure ; and when he returned, his
circle of friends and acquaintances, and at the
same time his practice as a sculptor, grew
steadily year by year. The portrait busts,
medallions, and statues he executed of great
Victorians are set forth in the list of his works
126

appended to the volume, and the correspondence
brought together by his daughter bears testi-
mony to the high esteem in which her father
and his work were held by many of them.
Miss Woolner has been content to leave the
letters to tell the story of his life, interpolating
only brief explanations where necessary; but
an additional interest is given to the compilation
by the inclusion of the story of “ The Fisherman”
as told by Woolner to Tennyson, who based his
“ Enoch Arden ” upon it. The illustrations
include a number of the sculptor’s works,
including the Puck statuette which gained him
many admirers in his early days.

Letters to Helen: The Impressions of an

Artist on the Western Front. By Keith Hen-
derson. (London : Chatto and Windus.) 6*\
net.—The war has dispelled a good many illu-
sions harboured by people in general, and among
others, that which represents the male artist as
a somewhat effeminate individual utterly inca-
pable of doing anything really useful according
to the popular idea of usefulness. But dis-
illusion has come slowly, and even now, in spite
of the accumulating proofs of the splendid
services which members of the profession have
rendered to the nation ever since the early days
of the great conflict, the old notion still lingers.
To those who continue to cherish it we may
commend the reading of these “ Letters to
Helen,” from which they will learn how one
who has followed with success the most peaceful
of all secular pursuits has cheerfully endured