Studio: international art (90.1925)

KEITH HENDERSON

"MRS. HORACE MANN"
BY KEITH HENDERSON

(By courtesy of Horace
Mann, Esq.)

KEITH HENDERSON. 000

THE reproductions accompanying this
article give some typical examples of the
art of Keith Henderson as a painter of
portraits. But Henderson has ploughed
many furrows in the field of art. Landscape
book-illustrations, still life, imaginative
compositions, his versatility knows no
bounds, though latterly he has concen-
trated more and more on portrait painting
and book-illustration. Starting his career
under influences that might fairly be called
pre-Raphaelite, his style has broadened
with the years, and taking full advantage of
the freedom inpaintingand design which has
been the great re-discovery of the modern
movement, he has lost nothing of his first deli-
cacy of vision and sensitiveness of feeling.

These are qualities, after all, which are of
supreme importance to the portrait painter
if his aim is to paint portraits and not simply
pictures. But the problem of combining the
"likeness" with a sound decorative effect is
not always solved so happily as in the exam-
ples we have before us. One feels instinctively
that these portraits are true mirrors of their
subjects. Yet as pictures they have all the
attraction which is the result of a fine and
practised sense of colour and design. 0
22

That this artist's work is not more often
represented in London Exhibitions is to be
deprecated, since the general public of art
lovers cannot sufficiently realise that Mr.
Henderson's output during the last few
years has been considerable and various.
Mr. Henderson's interest in book-illustra-
tion is perhaps the reason that he has taken
few pains to be so represented, though a
charming little open air still life at the
latest New English Art Club show will be
remembered by all who saw it. But
happily the bookshops contain several im-
portant volumes in which he has had a
hand—notably the monumental edition of
Prescott's " Conquest of Mexico " which
was issued by Chatto and Windus a year
or two since. 00000

Here one sees an entirely different
aspect of Mr. Henderson's artistic per-
sonality in a series of black and white
drawings, very beautiful as decorative units
yet of the utmost archaeological exactitude.
It would have been possible to approach
the task of re-rendering the relics of Aztec
art from a purely aesthetic point of view.
But Mr. Henderson begins as a scientific
archaeologist. On that groundwork he
builds his aesthetic edifice, and the result
is unique in its effect of actuality and fer-
vent precision. Geoffrey Whitworth.

(Our colour-plate is by courtesy of Messrs. Chatto
and Windus)

"LIEUT. W. W.ALLAN, ROYAL
SCOTS." BY KEITH HENDERSON

(By courtesy of Lieut. W. W. Allan)