Studio: international art (90.1925)

JAMES DURDEN—MRS GERTRUDE MASSEY'S WATER-COLOURS

studied at Manchester School of Art,
afterwards migrating to London and to
South Kensington, a a a a

His present painting shows some traces
of his study of magazine and book illus-
tration, in which he was for some time
engaged. His feminine types are dainty
and very modern, and he delights in ele-
gance and sophistication, and the beauty
pertaining thereto. Mr. Durden's chief
trait in common with other Manchester-
born artists is his adherence to light, clean
colour and other qualities foreign to
Lancashire, He misses no opportunity
of painting sunshine seen through windows,
with all its reflections and values, and
he loves the flash of light on glass and
polished wood. The work shows a
delicate sense of selection and of spacing
and brings the restfulness belonging to
the exercise of this sense. 000

292

"BLACK AND GOLD "'
BY JAMES DURDEN

MRS. GERTRUDE MASSEY'S
WATER-COLOURS. BY HERBERT
B. GRIMSDITCH, M.A. a 0

MRS. GERTRUDE MASSEY, wife
of the principal of the famous
Heatherley School, was at one time prin-
cipally a painter of portraits and minia-
tures. Twenty-four of these miniatures
were done for the Royal Family, but when
Mrs. Massey had finished her eight-
hundredth (three years ago) she turned to
landscape work, mainly in water-colour.
At first these drawings were made simply
for her own pleasure, and with so little
thought of exhibiting or selling that the
early ones appear in a sketch-book on
both sides of the page ; but when an
exhibition was arranged it met with prompt
and decided success. ? a a

For readers who attentively examine the