Studio: international art (85.1923)

STUDIO-TALK

details of a girl's room. Artist-craftsmen of
established reputation—as, for instance.
Professors Jan Kotera and Sanak—were
represented on this occasion by works of
striking originality. Among other interest-
ing exhibits was a set of painted wood
bonbonnieres by Professor Brunner of the
Prague School of Arts and Crafts ; book-
bindings by Mr. Bradac, a master binder of
high repute in this country, and Miss
Pospisilova of the Arts and Crafts School;
and a group of peasant pottery from the
town of Modre in Slovakia, where there
exist well-known pottery workshops in
which ware characteristic of the country
and its traditions is produced by workers
without any special training in art.

B. P. Cl.

COPENHAGEN. — At the autumn
exhibition in 1922 of the Danish
Royal Academy, at Charlottenborg, a
separate room was reserved for M. and
Mme. Fjastad, the distinguished Swedish
artists, who had been specially invited to
exhibit. The large room was filled with
a very striking and attractive collection of
their work, which is representative of

much of what is characteristic in con-
temporary Swedish art. The sense of the
decorative is frequently to the fore, often
expressed with considerable boldness and
fervour, a description which to a marked
extent applies to M. Fjastad'sat times im-
posing canvases, and, within the natural
limits of the medium, also to Mme. Maja
Fjastad's charming woodcuts. These in-
cluded some very effective clusters of
trees, one or two landscapes with a
presage of early spring, and some very
delightful flowers, of which one. Honey-
suckle, is reproduced opposite. Colour is
employed with rare discretion, in some
prints only suggested, but the design is
both decorative and convincing ; and in
all her woodcuts Mme. Fjastad seems to
avoid that hardness of line which is often
peculiar to this medium but which might
accord rather ill with the fragile petal of
a flower. In addition this artist, who
takes a keen and active interest in the
crafts and is herself an admirable crafts-
woman, exhibited some very personal
weavings, admirable both in design and
in their harmonious and subdued colour
schemes. G. E.

290

PAINTED WOODEN BONBON-
NIERES. BY V. H. BRUNNER