Studio: international art (81.1921)

STUDIO-TALK

FROM A WOOD-CUT BY
GWENDOLEN RAVERAT

away in the autumn of 1920, was, like
Mr. Belt, a student in the Royal Academy
Schools, in which he won the Gold Medal
and Travelling Studentship in 1889. As
a painter of subject pictures and, in later
years more especially, of portraits, his
work has been a recurring feature of the
Royal Academy Exhibitions for thirty
years. He excelled as a draughtsman,
and the numerous studies which we have
reproduced from time to time in these
pages—mostly executed in preparation
for subject paintings—have been warmly
appreciated by those who value good
drawing. He is represented at the Tate
Gallery by the Lament for Icarus, pur-
chased by the Chantrey Trustees in 1898.

We referred briefly in our last issue to
the fact that the newly formed Society
of Wood Engravers was holding its first
annual exhibition in December at the
Chenil Gallery, Chelsea, and it is now
our pleasant duty to report that the ex-

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hibition was a gratifying success. As
already mentioned, the Society consists
of ten members—Messrs. Gordon Craig,
E. M. O'R. Dickey, Robert Gibbings,
Eric Gill, Philip Hagreen, Sydney Lee,
John Nash, Lucien Pissarro, Noel Rooke,
and Mrs. Gwendolen Raverat, all of whom,
together with seven non-members in
sympathy with the aims of the Society
and pursuing the same methods as the
members, were represented in the show,
and the quality of the work there exhibited
is the best augury for the future of this
co-operative venture. Their methods
were also briefly alluded to in our previous
note ; they follow the traditional European
technique, cutting with a knife on the
wood plankwise or engraving with a burin
on the end of a block of hard wood like
box. The woodcuts so largely used for
illustrating books and periodicals before the
introduction of half-tone metal " blocks "
(also often called " cuts " by printers)