Studio: international art (87.1924)

SOUTHPORT

Miss M. R. Peacock has an agreeable
decorative intention pleasantly realised and
an attractive daintiness of sentiment; it is
drawn, too, with much vivacity. 0 0

The bookbinding by Mrs. Dora Knight
has the merit of simplicity and is orna-
mental without being ornate. 0 0

OLD ENGLISH SPORTING BOOKS.

THE recent successful Studio publica-
tion on “ Old English Sporting Prints ”
is to be followed in September next by a
companion volume on “ Old English
Sporting Books,” from the pen of the
same writer, Mr. Ralph Nevill, whose racy
treatment of sport is so admirably adapted
to the subject. This will be the first
volume devoted to the old books on sport;
some of which are renowned literary
classics, and all of which possess a quaint
interest. There will be about one
hundred illustrations, twenty-four of them
in colour. An illustrated prospectus is
now available. 0000

SOUTHPORT.—It has been said that
the love of art lives with leisure, and
though in the course of art's long centuries
circumstances have arisen to refute this,
in common with nearly every other state-
ment about art, the artistic position of
Southport seems to uphold the idea. 0
Southport is the place to which residents
of Manchester and Liverpool (less leisured
places, 37 and 19 miles away respectively)
retire when the gods of commerce have
been kind. Its earliest attraction was the
sea, to which time has added others, includ-
ing the Atkinson Library and Art Gallery
(1878). So great are these attractions that
the sea has become discouraged and is
spitefully retiring from the contest and the
town. This defection on the part of
nature is being counterbalanced by yearly
art shows of outstanding quality, for which
Lancashire’s leisure-town should have full
credit. 00000

The first need of an art gallery is a
curator who knows art broadly and deeply
and who works without respect of any-
thing but the varying merit of the work
in his hands. The second need is an arts
committee which trusts the curator and
leaves him unfettered, recognizing that
art decisions have depths too deep for

laymen. Without both these require-
ments an art gallery ceases to dispense art.
Southport obviously has the first of the
assets in the person of Mr. H. P. Huggill,
A.R.C.A. (Lond.), A.R.E. The success of
the exhibitions of the past few years sug-
gests that knowledge has not been over-
whelmed with counsel. 000
In selection and in hanging, this 39th
Southport Exhibition is an example to
many others in the country at large. In
the oil, water-colour, black-and-white and
applied art sections there is that sense of
perception preventing painful proximities,
so necessary, so beautiful and—so rare. 0
Works by W. T. Wood, V.P.R.W.S.,
Harold Harvey, Cecil Jameson, D. Murray
Smith, W. S. Anderson, Adrian Stokes,
R.A. (a native of Southport), Percy
Lancaster, R.I., R.B.A., A.R.E. (a resident),
and other well-known artists, English or
Scottish, show that the exhibition of
this small town is not unknown throughout
the country for its efforts after perfection.

J.W. S.

“ THE MANNEQUIN.” ETCH-
ING BY LEWIS BAUMER
(Fine Art Society, Ltd.)

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