Studio: international art (90.1925)

THE ROYAL SCOTTISH ACADEMY

" THE FRENCH CLOAK "
BY W. O. HUTCHISON

(Royal Scottish Academy)

Bridge, Glen Esk, by Edwin Martin, has
a refined charm, suggesting the time
and atmosphere of the place, as also do
the brilliantly conceived The Croft on the
Hillock, North Uist, by J. Hamilton
Mackenzie and the sympathetically har-
monious Winter Evening, by David Gauld.

Amongst the most arresting portraits
and paintings in which figures predominate
one must include the Portrait of a Lady,
by Isaac Cohen, in which the red sash and
similarly coloured flower are vigorously
contrasted; the red cuff note, too, is
cunningly treated in The French Cloak, a
distinguished figure subject by W. O.
Hutchison, while Doro.thy Johnstone has
seldom achieved more than her Girl with
Fruit, or D. M, Sutherland in his rhyth-

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mical and brilliantly coloured Breton
Dancers at the Fete of the Filets Bleu. I
doubt if amongst portrait painters there
are many to excel Sir James Guthrie when
at his best, who is represented by one
canvas, The Late G. M. Low, Esq., while
David Alison's most outstanding is per-
haps the Academy's President, G. Wash-
ington Browne, Esq., P.R.S.A. a
Amongst more visionary and decora-
tively treated works will be found Columba
Bidding Farewell to The Old Horse, by
John Duncan ; the sympathetically felt
The Flight, by Alexander Walker ; The
Voice in the Wilderness, by J. Alix Dick ;
and Ancel Stronach's Where sinks the
voice of music into a silence, which was re-
produced in The Studio, December,
1924 ; and Echo, by D. Forrester Wilson,
reproduced in April, 1925. Here and
there brilliantly painted flower subjects
brighten the sadness of some of the walls,
notably Stuart Park's Cream and Red
Roses; the brightly painted Still Life, by
Leslie Hunter ; and the Still Life, Fruit
and Flowers, by E. Drummond Young, a
Out of the 178 water-colours ex-
hibited, perhaps the most appealing are
the loan examples, including Frank Bran-
gwyn's The Cathedral, Cahors; Kelp
Burners, by Lucien Simon ; and Farquhar
Macrae, by Henry W. Kerr; others
creating a lasting impression being, A
Song Without Words, by F. Cayley Robin-
son ; the dainty harmony of greens in
The Spires of Lincoln Cathedral, by Charles
Napier; Winter, by David West; the
direct and strongly painted, An Old Door
in Venice, by E. M. Steedman ; Kurds on
the Tigris, by John Revel; A Breton
Village, by Iain Macnab ; skilful work by
Warwick Reynolds, Barry Pittar, John
Keppie, Katherine Cameron, Mabel Daw-
son, Ewan Geddes, and Agnes Raeburn. 0
From the black and white section, which
is always uncommonly interesting, space
will not permit more than a slight mention
of Moonlight Off Corfu, by Muirhead
Bone; Pen Drawing, by Robert H.
Westwater ; colour wood block by Mabel
Royds; drawings by Henry Harvey
Wood, E. Drummond Young, D. M.
Sutherland, John Copley, Randolph
Schwabe, and Ragged Sails, etching, by
E, S. Lumsden. E. A. Taylor.