Studio: international art (87.1924)

LIVERPOOL—MANCHESTER

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ORIGINAL LITHOGRAPH

BY MISS E. M. CHAPMAN

being represented. If the students (whose
number varies—500 is only an approxi-
mate estimate)—if these students do not
carry a craft to its ultimate conclusion
of knowledge, it will, it seems, be their
own fault—or Titian's. Miss Beatrice
Guercio is an outstandingly imaginative
student, and the freedom from constraint
in her work shows the tact with which her
masters have treated it. 0 0 0

Liverpool, like most commerical towns,
is an architectural medley. She has St.
George’s Hall, a building justly famous
everywhere. She has also buildings which
suggest “ the profiteer's dream of beauty.”
She is to have anew building which,accord-
ing to Professor Reilly, "would not disgrace
FifthAvenue.” New Yorkis thus proclaimed
as a standard of excellence ; and Professor
Reilly knows his ground in Liverpool, New
York or Architecture. Mr. Arnold
Thornely, F.R.I.B.A., and Mr. Herbert
Rowse, A.R.I.B.A., are the architects for
this huge building which the Holt Shipping
Company will erect in Water Street, which
is near the river. As the height of the build-
ing will be, from ground to main cornice,
120ft., with two set back stories above,
bringing the total height to 150ft., and as
42

its frontages will be approximately 220ft.
and 257ft., the massiveness of this finely
severe structure can be imagined. 0 0

Liverpool is rich in architects, and Mr.
Arnold Thornely is not displaying his
genius for the first time, in Liverpool or
elsewhere. His work, and that of his col-
leagues, is assuming a definite attitude,
which Professor Reilly calls “ The Ameri-
can orientation of Liverpool architectural
thought.” This Americanisation is not to-
wards the “ skyscraper,” but towards that
massive architecture which depends not
on “ trimmings,” but on construction, for
its dignity or beauty. 000

If Liverpool is wise, she will leave her
architecture to her own architects. The
town is building freely. If these men, with
their fine reputation and their co-ordinated
vision are her architects, the older (if not,
alas ! the newer) of her “ profiteer’s
dream ” buildings, will vanish and be re-
placed by a “ whole ” city—a town homo-
geneous and desirable, a place where, in
time (who knows s') the stranger may
linger, not yearning, as he now does, for
“ the first train out.” J. W. S.

Manchester.—The work of Miss

Elizabeth M. Chapman exemplifies
the results of quiet and largelyunaided effort
in lithography. Miss Chapman is a native of
Manchester, who, after studying portrait
painting under Mr. Reginald Barber and at
Manchester School of Art, made her first
lithograph under Mr. Leslie Ward at
Bournemouth. Since then she has worked
out her own salvation in the medium, draw-
ing on the stone and printing on her own
press, with excellent results. Her work is
directly truthful and has a strong sweet-
ness and capacity, with a grasp of the
powers and limitations of the lithographic
art, an art peculiarly suitable for portrait
work in modern circumstances. 0 0

Mr. Cooper was born in Bolton, but, like
so many good Lancastrian artists, he must
now be looked for in London, though Bolton
needs his like. One reiterates this theme
of the Lancashire-lost artists,for Lancashire
reasons, at the risk of boring. Lancashire
may heed some time. The Slade School
claimed him when he came to London, and
although he has done much good land-
scape, his present chief interest is the