DOI Heft:
No. 379 (October 1924)
DOI Artikel:Salaman, Malcolm C.: Sir Frank Short's retirement from the Royal College of Art
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21400#0203
SIR FRANK SHORT'S RETIREMENT
FROM THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF
ART. BY MALCOLM C. SALAMAN.
SIR FRANK SHORT'S retirement from
the Royal College of Art leaves him
still a busy functionary. As Treasurer and
deputy-President of the Royal Academy, as
President of the Royal Society of Painter-
Etchers and Engravers, as chairman of
various committees that serve the interests
of his fellow-artists, Sir Frank will still, I
suppose, give his time without stint. His
is a nature ruled by an incorrigible losing
generosity of conscience; but now, at
least for him, after nearly four decades,
the year has ceased to be divided into
college terms, and as a landscape reveals
its pictorial lines to him, or any dawn
or moonrise its tones, the pictorial beauty
is not likely to call in vain to his leisure
for artistic response. Print-collectors may
now hope for a more liberal share of his
exquisite art. New etchings with the
master's visions of a coast washed by the
English Channel or by the Solway Firth,
show as convincingly as of old the un-
erring selection, first of the true etching
motive, next of the essentially expressive
line ; and new mezzotints are in progress.
Yet so long have the name, the per-
sonality, the art of Frank Short been in-
separable from the " Etching Class," as it
used to be called, at South Kensington ;
so long have these stood for the thorough
teaching of pure craftsmanship in every
phase and stage of all the methods of the
copperplate, together with the inspiration of
the true artistic tradition of the masters, it
seems difficult to believe that a new session
has begun at the college without Sir Frank
being there, in his familiar blue overall,
genially and encouragingly training a new
generation of students. Already two gen-
erations of etchers can gratefully call
him master, while the influence of his fine
" the lusitania's raft on broadstairs pier "
etching by sir frank short, r.a., p.r.e.
(First presentation plate of the Print Collectors'
Club. By courtesy of Mrs. Salaman)
Vol. LXXXVIII. No. 379.—October, 1924. 183
FROM THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF
ART. BY MALCOLM C. SALAMAN.
SIR FRANK SHORT'S retirement from
the Royal College of Art leaves him
still a busy functionary. As Treasurer and
deputy-President of the Royal Academy, as
President of the Royal Society of Painter-
Etchers and Engravers, as chairman of
various committees that serve the interests
of his fellow-artists, Sir Frank will still, I
suppose, give his time without stint. His
is a nature ruled by an incorrigible losing
generosity of conscience; but now, at
least for him, after nearly four decades,
the year has ceased to be divided into
college terms, and as a landscape reveals
its pictorial lines to him, or any dawn
or moonrise its tones, the pictorial beauty
is not likely to call in vain to his leisure
for artistic response. Print-collectors may
now hope for a more liberal share of his
exquisite art. New etchings with the
master's visions of a coast washed by the
English Channel or by the Solway Firth,
show as convincingly as of old the un-
erring selection, first of the true etching
motive, next of the essentially expressive
line ; and new mezzotints are in progress.
Yet so long have the name, the per-
sonality, the art of Frank Short been in-
separable from the " Etching Class," as it
used to be called, at South Kensington ;
so long have these stood for the thorough
teaching of pure craftsmanship in every
phase and stage of all the methods of the
copperplate, together with the inspiration of
the true artistic tradition of the masters, it
seems difficult to believe that a new session
has begun at the college without Sir Frank
being there, in his familiar blue overall,
genially and encouragingly training a new
generation of students. Already two gen-
erations of etchers can gratefully call
him master, while the influence of his fine
" the lusitania's raft on broadstairs pier "
etching by sir frank short, r.a., p.r.e.
(First presentation plate of the Print Collectors'
Club. By courtesy of Mrs. Salaman)
Vol. LXXXVIII. No. 379.—October, 1924. 183