DOI issue:
No. 381 (December 1924)
DOI article:[Notes: one hundred and ninety-three illustrations]
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21400#0362
LIVERPOOL
" COQ." WATER-COLOUR
BY ETIENNE DE LIERRES
(Liverpool Autumn Exhn.)
LIVERPOOL.—The workings of art
politics in Manchester and Liverpool
are producing varied results. Manchester
artists would abolish the " closed show "
system, beloved of civic authority. The
results of their efforts so far are very
strange. Liverpool's immense and eclectic
annual show has, on the other hand, been
challenged (not by the artists) in favour
of closed shows. Now the huge inclusive
exhibition is an inartistic thing in itself;
but by reason of its very catholicity it may
include much good and great art, and it
also allows the unknown man, or the
prophet still in his own country, his oppor-
tunity. The closed show may be a beauti-
ful " arrangement," but it usually empha-
sises only the arrived practitioner, and the
personal taste of the selecting authority,
who may be learned, but who has, in the
nature of human creatures, his predilec-
tions. Thus the choice for artists is be-
tween a fair chance of being seen in mixed
company, or of being either one of a
favoured few or an unseen majority. As a
force for the promotion of art life and
interest in a city, the open show, which
draws, not only a few " highbrows " over-
awed by higher " highbrows," but the
342
ordinary art needing populace, is much
stronger than its alternative, as any student
of the present shows in Manchester and
Liverpool can see. And the artistic fame
of a city rests, finally, not on what she
gathers but on what she produces. a
It may be that recent disputations have
proved bracing, or that the professional
hangers, who are always included in Liver-
pool's very civic selecting jury, have this
year proved more impelling than usual
(Mr. Bertram Priestman, R.A., was this
year's London hanger, and Liverpool was
represented by Mr. Alison Martin, one of
her ablest artists), but the Fifty-second
Autumn Exhibition is a decided improve-
ment on recent predecessors. There are
still many things hung which should have
been privately burned, and some deserving
public execution. The wild and sickly loves
of complete ignorance are present. But the
main hanging is sanely done, and the many
fine works make the " biggest show in the
provinces " worthy of metropolitan atten-
tion. There is a large foreign room of
APOLLO AND DAPHNE." BY
OLIVE GRACE BOURNE
(Liverpool Autumn Exhibition)
" COQ." WATER-COLOUR
BY ETIENNE DE LIERRES
(Liverpool Autumn Exhn.)
LIVERPOOL.—The workings of art
politics in Manchester and Liverpool
are producing varied results. Manchester
artists would abolish the " closed show "
system, beloved of civic authority. The
results of their efforts so far are very
strange. Liverpool's immense and eclectic
annual show has, on the other hand, been
challenged (not by the artists) in favour
of closed shows. Now the huge inclusive
exhibition is an inartistic thing in itself;
but by reason of its very catholicity it may
include much good and great art, and it
also allows the unknown man, or the
prophet still in his own country, his oppor-
tunity. The closed show may be a beauti-
ful " arrangement," but it usually empha-
sises only the arrived practitioner, and the
personal taste of the selecting authority,
who may be learned, but who has, in the
nature of human creatures, his predilec-
tions. Thus the choice for artists is be-
tween a fair chance of being seen in mixed
company, or of being either one of a
favoured few or an unseen majority. As a
force for the promotion of art life and
interest in a city, the open show, which
draws, not only a few " highbrows " over-
awed by higher " highbrows," but the
342
ordinary art needing populace, is much
stronger than its alternative, as any student
of the present shows in Manchester and
Liverpool can see. And the artistic fame
of a city rests, finally, not on what she
gathers but on what she produces. a
It may be that recent disputations have
proved bracing, or that the professional
hangers, who are always included in Liver-
pool's very civic selecting jury, have this
year proved more impelling than usual
(Mr. Bertram Priestman, R.A., was this
year's London hanger, and Liverpool was
represented by Mr. Alison Martin, one of
her ablest artists), but the Fifty-second
Autumn Exhibition is a decided improve-
ment on recent predecessors. There are
still many things hung which should have
been privately burned, and some deserving
public execution. The wild and sickly loves
of complete ignorance are present. But the
main hanging is sanely done, and the many
fine works make the " biggest show in the
provinces " worthy of metropolitan atten-
tion. There is a large foreign room of
APOLLO AND DAPHNE." BY
OLIVE GRACE BOURNE
(Liverpool Autumn Exhibition)