Studio: international art (83.1922)

MR- FRANK BRANGWYN'S DRAW-
INGS AT BARBIZON HOUSE- BY
CROSSLEY DAVIES- 000

SO rarely does Mr- Frank Brangwyn,
R.A., show his work in London that
the exhibition of some fifty working draw-
ings, just opened at Barbi^on House by
Mr. Croal Thomson, has a special interest
and appeal. Apart from the fact that any
show of Mr. Brangwyn's work has an im-
portanceequal to his international standing,
which is to-day higher than that of any
other British artist, this particular show is
unique in its character. Few artists would
care to exhibit their working drawings.
Fewer still would be draughtsmen enough
to justify the experiment. For these draw-
ings were not meant for the public eye.
They are studio studies, fragmentary notes,
the raw material of art—and in some cases
its shorthand. They are a kind of card

index, references and reminders, setting
down the cold facts of line and form, of
fold and feature. Their purpose is not art
so much as annotation. 000
11 These drawings/' Mr. Brangwyn ex-
plained to me "have been done with no idea
of exhibiting—only as working drawings for
jobs, and I never thought of them as being
of any artistic value other than of use to my-
self. Many hundreds have been destroyed,
and it was only when museums bought
them that I had any idea that they might
possess some interest in other eyes." Yet
they are documents of absorbing interest,
masterpieces of draughtsmanship, intimate
records that take the spectator right into a
great artist's studio. It is a joy to inspect
them, to note the free strong play of chalk
and pencil, the suggestive lines and out-
lines, swift first impression and occasional
after-thought, and, above all, the marginal
pencilled notes that appear now and then

GROUP OF MEN-AT-ARMS.’' STUDY FOR
PANEL IN THE NEW COURT HOUSE, CLEVE-
LAND, OHIO. BY FRANK BRANKWYN, R.A.

II9

Vol. LXXXIII.—No. 348. March 1922