Studio: international art (88.1924)

THE STUDIO

GLYN PHILPOT: MASTER especially is he so in his recent pictures—

CRAFTSMAN. BY GEORGE where the means of achievement are, with

SHERINGHAM. 0000 §reat ski11 and knowledge, well-nigh con-

t cealed. But never at any time (with one

THE old masters were always crafts- exception) do Mr. Philpot's works demand

men : whether " great masters " for that excited posture in one that is so dear

other qualities or not they were masters to the poseur : they are in excellent har-

because they were craftsmen. But each year mony with himself and his surroundings—

now the work of a real craftsman seems to for on each occasion that I have visited him

gain more value by its rarity in a large in his studio I have retained the memory

exhibition, where the meticulous and of an environment of unique orderliness,

rather dull carefulness of the past genera- beauty, quiet, refinement and, above all

r|°ns nas given place, for the most part, to else, work ; and, as a rule, also the out-

e dazzling feats of Mr. Sargent's satel- standing recollection of some one thing of

ites and the more than dazzling achieve- particular virtue : it may be a modelled

ments of those great ones whose pictures bronze mask of his own workmanship ;

Zt'. aPParently, painted while running ; his garden ornament of V Apres-Midi d'un

whQ6 Un f r^°*n§ vibro-massage treatment; Faun ; a fine Rodin ; or an exceptionally

cellar ^ ^ ' Pictures painted in the beautiful Coromandel screen. 0 0

a 1 , ' Plctures painted with a lip-stick or It is a good many years ago now since

real ^W^ Fitzroy-Street-mud or The Studio reproduced two pen-drawings

engagiri —which are a^ so clever and by a student of the Lambeth School of Art

doomed^t Wmch, alas ! are too often named Glyn Philpot. This, as far as I can

truth is th 3 S'10rt u^e ' because the simple remember, was the first work I saw of his.

a picture trf* " takes a craftsman to paint Though only small drawings they had

we hav rVi ^ ^aSt* ^n ^vn Philpot distinction and a good promise of fine

nician h ^ cra^tsman' f°r> as a tech- things to follow. Later, not long after, a

' ne is always the master. More gallery (in Baker Street, I think) held a

Vol. LXXXVIII. No. 376.—July 1924.

1 the coast of britain"
by glyn w. philpot, r.a.

3