Studio: international art (74.1918)

Studio- Talk

New English Art Club. Several of the club's
principal supporters are not represented among
the oil paintings in the central gallery, and two
or three of them have sent nothing at all to the
exhibition. On this occasion Mr. Wilson
Steer is seen at his best in some water-colours,
notably An old Hulk and Harwich, in both of
which his spontaneous use of the medium is
admirably exemplified. In the oil medium the
most conspicuous features are the landscapes
of Mr. C. J. Holmes, portraiture by Prof.
Henry Tonks and Prof. W. Rothenstein ; the
large decoratively treated canvases by M.
Jacques Raverat, and a big Decoration by
Lilian Lancaster. Excellent painting of the
nude figure is to be seen in Prof. Tonk's The
Manicure and Mr. Fairlie Harmar's The Model
Covets ; of still life and flowers in contributions
from Mr. Harold Speed, Mile. Alice Ronner,
Mrs. Rushbury, Miss Louise Pickard, and Mr.
J. B. Manson ; and of interiors by Mr. Alex-
ander Roche. Mr. Henry Rushbury, Mr. C. M.
Gere, Miss M. Gere, Mr. Rich, M. H. Daeye,
Mr. Muirhead, Mr. D. S. MacColl, Mr. Joseph
Southall, Mr. Collins Baker, and Elinor Darwin
are among others whose work helps to strengthen
the exhibition.

As there has been a good deal of talk lately
about impending changes at Burlington House
in the direction of bringing the administration
of the Royal Academy more into harmony
with modern tendencies, it may be of interest
to recall the names of members and associates
of the Academy who have been identified with
the New English Art Club since its inaugura-
tion in 1885. Among, the R.A.'s there are Mr.
J. S. Sargent, Mr. J. J. Shannon, Mr. Stanhope
Forbes, Mr. H. S. Tuke, Mr. La Thangue, Mr.
Solomon, Mr. Clausen, Mr. Hacker, the late Mr.
Bramley, and Mr. Parsons, and among the asso-
ciates Sir William Orpen, Mr. Mark Fisher, Mr.
Priestman, Mr. Philip Connard, and Mr. Edward
Stott, recently deceased.

Mr. Stott's association with the New English
Art Club began at its very beginning, and he
was a regular contributor to all the early ex-
hibitions of the club. It was in 1885, the year
the club was founded, that he took up his
abode at Amberley in Sussex, where he passed
the remainder of his life. At that time lie had
not long returned from Paris, where he had
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studied in the Cabanel atelier and also for a
short time under Carolus Duran, Mr. Sargent's
tutor in preceding years, but it was the painters
of Barbizon, and especially Jean Francois Millet,
whose influence left an enduring mark on his
work. Lhe picture we are privileged to reproduce
here in colour—one among several important
canvases and pastels in the possession of the pre-
sent owner—belongs in date to the early years of
this century, and we believe was exhibited at
the New Gallery in 1904. With another picture
it was selected to represent the artist at the
Franco-British Exhibition held at Shepherd's
Bush ten years ago, and is undoubtedly to be
accounted a masterpiece among those pictures
of the twilight for which he was famed.

E"> DINBURGH.—Since entering into pos-
i session of the new galleries, the Royal
Scottish Academy has devoted a
J considerable portion of the wall space
to the exhibition of work by prominent painters
of various English and Continental Schools.
So much has this practice been followed that on
some occasions the exhibition has been unduly
cosmopolitan in character. This year war limi-
tations have necessitated the Council making
a change, and the principal gallery is entirely
devoted to the work of Past-Presidents of the
Academy. The change is welcome in that it
provides an opportunity of studying the de-
velopment of painting in Scotland for over a
century, so far at least as applied to por-
traiture ; for most of the Presidents down to
the present occupant of the chair have been
primarily portraitists.

As regards the art of the year the general
observation may be made that it is free from
artificial embellishment, sensationalism, or levity
of thought and purpose. There are no war
distractions, but evidence of a genuine desire to
present the true and beautiful apart from the
transient influences of the time. Among the
veterans Mr. Robert Alexander attains a high
quality of art in his sympathetic rendering of a
huntsman visiting his dog-kennel, while Mr.
Lawton Wingate's three small landscapes show
his skill in interpreting Nature in her most
sensitive moods. The President, Sir James
Guthrie, in his not over-intimate but suavely
truthful portrait of Mr. Maconochie Wellwood,
amply sustains his reputation, and Mr. Fiddes