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Art Review A Survey of British Art In All Its Branches 1938   1938    Page: 5
 
 The Art World in 1938
Profiles: click on name to see profile
 
Salisbury, Frank Owen [1874-1962. UK. Painter/Stained Glass Designer]
Squirrell, Leonard Russell [1893-1979. UK. Painter]
Footnotes:
The Coronation of Their Majesties King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, 12th May, 1937 Oil painting by Frank O. Salisbury, C.V.O., R.P., R.l. Presented to H.M. the King by the Dominions of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Union of South Africa Exhibited at the Royal Academy

Blackfriars Bridge Water-colour by Leonard R. Squirrell, A.R.W.S., R.E. Exhibited at the Royal Society of Painters in Water- Colours
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The Art World in 1938

HOWEVER detached from the general movement of events the artist imagines himself to be, he remains, as we all do, the creature of environment. This is more apparent in architecture than in any other of the arts of sight, for architecture is more closely linked up with utility than painting or sculpture. And so, as new materials become available, architectural styles change. But there is another sense than the merely material one in which environmental influences may be felt. Art is, or ought to be, a social activity, and the artist’s ideal material is the world he finds around him. The physical world of trees and rivers, flowers and hills, remains (thank heaven !) an abiding joy. But mankind constantly changes in habit and character, and a really healthy art would take cognizance of such mutations. Yet there is little evidence today that painters and graphic artists realize that they are living in an age full of exciting happenings and drastic social re-alignments. So far as the modern figure-painter is concerned, fascism and communism might be non-existent; the marvellous lines of the aeroplane are rarely attempted; and an archaeologist digging up relics of our vanished civilization would hardly realize that in the post-war age woman had become more beautiful (because freer and healthier) than ever before.

Much of this lack of touch with prevailing world conditions and phenomena arises from the newfangled doctrine that to betray any kind of interest in life somehow connotes weakness in the pictorial artist. Heaven knows, we are no longer in danger of excusing a bad style on the score of subject. The time is more than ripe for the first-rate painter to
Art Review A Survey of British Art In All Its Branches 1938   1938    Page: 6
 
 The Art World in 1938
Profiles: click on name to see profile
 
Bristowe, Nicholas [1902-1953. UK. Painter]
Eves, Reginald Grenville [1876-1941. UK. Painter]
Footnotes:
Leslie Howard, Esq. Oil painting by Reginald G. Eves, A.R.A., R.P., R.l. Exhibited at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters

Oil painting by Nicholas Bristowe Exhibited at the New English Art Club
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show once more that he has ideas. In Spain there is now occurring a terrific struggle between two systems, the upshot of which may decide the future of Europe for a century. But it seems to have had singularly little effect on our painters. True, Mr. Russell Flint had a Spanish war canvas in the Royal Academy, and, like all his work, it was technically accomplished. But it had very little fire and emotion about it, and one has only to think what a Delacroix, a Daumier, a Goya or a Hogarth would have made of it to see what effect an imperfect philosophy has had on painting since Cézanne.

To come from great events to others of less moment, the Coronation of King George VI produced nothing very outstanding in the field of pictorial art. Various artists seized on the uniforms of the military and beefeaters in the procession, and on the flags and bunting bedecking the streets, as an excuse for a colour stampede; but nearly all these pictures seemed in the end to be merely pictures of puppets or toys. The actual ceremony itself was officially depicted by Mr. Frank O. Salisbury with his usual astonishing competence. But all told, the Coronation was not made the occasion for any moving portrayal.

The purchase by H.M. the Queen of works by Wilson Steer and Augustus John is a good augury for the progress of the royal collections in the present reign. In the existing constitution of the social state it matters more than a little that royal personages should show good taste in what they buy. It is pleasant to record these two transactions, for the artists concerned are universally admitted to be among our greatest; and it is to be hoped that this good beginning is only the prelude to a long tale of encouragement to the best elements in British art.

On April 9 last the National Gallery celebrated its centenary. For more than thirty years in its beginnings the Gallery shared quarters with the Royal Academy. During this period, and indeed ever since, the problem of space has keenly exercised the minds of successive Directors. With the comparatively rapid expansion of the collection year by year the problem still exists, and one can but wonder how long it will be before the move to some other site becomes imperative. In planning the future of a museum or gallery it is necessary to think not in decades but in centuries, and if the Trustees have at present no prospect of expanding backwards to Orange Street that possibility should be envisaged and provided for by the State. One move in the right direction has been
Art Review A Survey of British Art In All Its Branches 1938   1938    Page: 7
 
 The Art World in 1938
Profiles: click on name to see profile
 
Mann, Cathleen [1896-1959. UK. Painter/Poster Designer]
Sozonov, Vsevolod [1899-1966. Russia/UK. Painter/Commercial Artist]
Footnotes:
Head of a Girl Oil painting by Cathleen Mann, R.P, R.O.I. Exhibited at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters

Master Andrew Best Oil painting by V. Sozonov Exhibited at the London Portrait Society
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made by the provision, by the Office of Works, of a new gallery which is to be devoted to changing exhibitions, either of little- known works from the reference sections or of ‘pictures selected from the various galleries in order to illustrate some aspect of art/ The quotation is from Sir Kenneth Clark’s article in The Times, and he continues thus: ‘Schools of painting and chronology must no doubt be the basis of a general arrangement; but a room in which a given problem or subject—the art of portraiture, for example—can be seen as treated by various schools must surely be of interest to all amateurs.’

In this sentiment we concur, and we would support the plea of Mr. A. J. Munnings, R.A., that a room or rooms at the Tate Gallery should be similarly devoted to changing exhibitions of various schools or aspects of painting. Great masses of material are hidden away in the cellars of our national collections, and only courage and energy on the part of administrators are required to bring a good deal of this material to light. Much of it might be sent round the provinces in circulating exhibitions, and we should like to see such a scheme inaugurated, under the control of some experienced organizer like C. R. Chisman. The Tate Gallery has a new Director, in the person of Dr. J. K. M. Rothenstein, who comes back to London with a distinguished record of administration in Sheffield. He is under forty, which is all to the good, and we venture to hope that an enlightened and forward looking policy will be pursued under his direction at Millbank.

In previous issues we have had occasion to comment on the excessive amount of French art which has been shown in this country. The tendency of dealers to fill every gap by a French exhibition (not always outstanding in quality) continues unabated, but it is a pleasure to record that during the present year there has been some reciprocation on the part of our neighbours. The Musee du Louvre has assembled a small but representative collection of British art of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which was opened by the President of the Republic in March. We British are probably unique among the nations in our faculty for self-depreciation, and in no sphere is this more apparent than in that of the graphic and plastic arts. It is well, therefore, that Parisians have had an opportunity of seeing men like Turner, Crome, and Constable once more. Instructed minds in France have never denied the pioneer rights
Art Review A Survey of British Art In All Its Branches 1938   1938    Page: 8
 
 The Art World in 1938
Profiles: click on name to see profile
 
Armfield, Maxwell [1881-1972. UK. Illustrator/Theatre Designer/Painter/Decorative Artist]
Nicoll, Gordon [1888-1959. UK. Painter/Poster Designer/Illustrator]
Footnotes:
On the Set, Denham Water-colour by Gordon Nicoll, R.l. Exhibited at the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colours

Cotswold Mill Tempera painting by Maxwell Armfield, A.R.W.S. Exhibited at the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours
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of these painters, but it is a pleasant thought that their primacy should have been once more asserted in the opulent setting of the French national gallery. The exhibition has been highly appreciated by our French friends, and it should have very healthy results in correcting a tendency towards undue depreciation of our contribution to the world’s art. We should like to see it followed up (though of this we have little hope) by a number of one-man exhibitions by British painters in the Parisian galleries. While the French as a race are inalienably convinced of their cultural supremacy, they are (to give them their due) always prepared to recognize merit from outside. This is a matter for dealers and artists to settle among themselves, and it will not be easily done. But the fact that British artists like J. D. Fergusson, Sine Mackinnon and others of note live and work in France, and find full appreciation there, shows that this territory can be stormed.

An event which presented considerable artistic opportunity was the great Empire Exhibition at Glasgow, which opened last May. The general layout was wisely put into the hands of one architect, Thomas F. Tait, who, seeing the possibilities of a fine natural site, exploited them to the utmost. There is general agreement that the Glasgow Exhibition has been architecturally far ahead of Wembley. It was conceived as a whole, and a proper sense of the spectacular presided over its arrangement. Colour was everywhere used with taste and judgment, and sculpture by first-rate artists lent good aid to the general scheme. It is pleasant to record that opportunity was given for the decorative collaboration of many young local artists (some of them pupils of the late Maurice Greiffenhagen, R.A.) and that they made the most of it. The fullest use was made of modern lightingdevices, especially in conjunction with lakes and fountains.

The Palace of Arts at Glasgow is a permanent building designed as an additional art gallery for the City. It housed a carefully selected collection of some seven hundred works of art, comprising Scottish Old Masters, Scottish artists of the middle period (including the Glasgow School) and contemporary British artists. Allan Ramsay and Raeburn dominated the Old Master section; the middle period included some fine Crawhalls, Hornel, McTaggart, Guthrie, and all the other well-known names; the contemporary section showed Steer, Nicholson, Sickert, John, and a pretty sound collection representative of contemporary practice. The task of choosing and assembling all these works, carried out under the direction of Major A. A. Longden, was a colossal one. In certain matters of detail there have been criticisms; this was inevitable, but on the whole the work was very ably done.
Art Review A Survey of British Art In All Its Branches 1938   1938    Page: 9
 
 The Art World in 1938
Profiles: click on name to see profile
 
Sisley, Alfred [1839-1899. France. Painter]
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Oil painting, size 21 1/2" x 15" By Alfred Sisley

CHANTIER AU BORD DU LOING, À MORET
Exhibited at Barbizon House
Art Review A Survey of British Art In All Its Branches 1938   1938    Page: 10
 
 The Art World in 1938
Profiles: click on name to see profile
 
Brooks John Charles Vine [1901-1981. UK. Painter]
Hill, Adrian [1895-1977. UK. Painter]
Footnotes:
Bright Intervals, North Wales Oil painting by Adrian Hill, R.B.A., R.O.I. Exhibited at the Royal Academy

The Barnsley Main Oil painting by J. C. V. Brooks Exhibited at the London Group
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It is pleasant to record an increasing consciousness of the importance of good design in everyday things, expressed by various practical steps taken by public bodies. It is a truism that the great industrial period of the nineteenth century induced a false view of the function of art (decorative art in particular) not only in the minds of the general public but among artists themselves. In the worst period it was generally held that decoration was something extraneous to the product, to be added after its manufacture to ‘beautify it. In a sense, of course, this is true, and even austere modern potters like Staite Murray and Bernard Leach do not altogether eschew such additions. But the falsity of the theory lay in two implied propositions—first, that the actual design of the product was unlikely alone to produce beauty, and second, that added ornament should be of an elaborate kind, and often pictorial in scope. Among the instructed few these dogmas have now been completely vanquished (and indeed there is a tendency in modern functionalism to rely overmuch on form for beauty); but it needs only a glance at the cheaper shops supplying furniture, pottery, glassware and textiles, to see that in the markets which cater for the large mass of the public the discredited beliefs -still hold sway.

A prime moving force in the bettering of this state of affairs is the Council for Art and Industry, which works for the advancement of the artist’s craft and status, for the education of the public to demand a higher standard of design, and for the production by manufacturers of material to foster and satisfy this demand. During the current year the Council has, in conjunction with the Federation of British Industries, the Association of British Chambers of Commerce, and the principal art bodies in the country, set up a National Register of Industrial Art Designers, which aims, as its name implies, to establish and maintain a high quality in industrial design by giving its imprimatur to the work of the best craftsmen in the country. Membership is open to any artist who works for industry, and the widest view is taken of what constitutes art work. Potential members may be either freelances or men regularly connected with a studio, factory or workshop. They apply for registration, their claims are assessed by an impartial Adjudication Committee, and if the work satisfies this body the designer is registered, and entitled to affix the letters N.R.D. to his name. The efficacy of this scheme will largely depend, of course, on the breadth of view and aesthetic integrity of those who select the names for approval. From the earliest registrations it would seem that good hopes may justifiably be entertained.

The same is true of the very similar scheme promoted by the Royal Society of Arts, which is giving the diploma, R.D.I. (that is, Designer for Industry of the Royal Society of Arts) to a very small number of selected artists of outstanding merit. The first ten recipients of the honour (there were eleven, but George Sheringham died before he could receive it) were
Art Review A Survey of British Art In All Its Branches 1938   1938    Page: 11
 
 The Art World in 1938
Profiles: click on name to see profile
 
Knight, Charles [1901-1990. UK. Painter/Stained Glass Designer]
Proudfoot, James [1908-1971. UK. Painter]
Footnotes:
Hoe Mill Bridge, Essex Water-colour by Charles Knight, R.W.S., R.O.I. Exhibited at the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours

House with Posters Oil painting by James Proudfoot Exhibited at the Heatherley Group, Ward Gallery
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presented with their diplomas by the Duke of Gloucester in February last. The names will show the standard set: Douglas Cockerell, Eric Gill, James Hogan, J. H. Mason, H. G. Murphy, Keith Murray, Tom Purvis, Harold Stabler, Fred Taylor and C. F. Annesley Voysey. E. McKnight Kauffer, as an American citizen, was ineligible for the award, but received an honorary distinction for eminent services in commercial art. The number of artists at any one time holding the R.D.I. is to be limited to 40, so that it is likely to be a highly- coveted distinction. If further elections are as well studied as this first list we shall be prepared to regard the diploma as a very weighty testimonial. At the same time we feel that other outstanding men like Austin Cooper might well have been included in the first list.

As will be remarked, though these two schemes are at one in their object—the furtherance of industrial design—they differ considerably in scope. That of the Royal Society of Arts aims to provide one supreme distinction for a select few; but the National Register is limited in membership only by the amount of
available talent, and its promoters will be best pleased by the augmentation of its lists. Neither plan can force either manufacturers or public to foster better design, but both can exercise a considerable persuasive effect.

Taking the art world by and large, there has been no emergence of any new and significant movement during the year. The Surrealist business goes on, and at the London, Guggenheim and Mayor Galleries (delightfully dubbed by Charles Marriott ‘the little bethels of Cork Street ’—from their devotion to heretical artistic creeds) we have seen a good deal of eccentric stuff, including arrangements of wires hanging from the ceiling and an egg-shaped object described by Brancusi as ' sculpture for the blind.’ The Christopher Wood boom continues, and the enormous exhibition of his work held at the New Burlington Galleries was visited by over 50,000 people, while various pictures ran well into three figures, one producing as much as £700. On the whole the picture market has been a little brighter, but neither the art trade nor any other (except those connected with armaments) can be as healthy as might be wished while the continent of Europe is overclouded by political apprehension. So gravely has the fear of war been felt that there has been a certain reluctance among owners of Old Masters to lend them to continental exhibitions. It is devoutly to be hoped that our next year’s survey will be able to take a more cheerful view. In the world of today there is enough and to spare for all, and only the crass inefficiency and stupidity of the politicians is retarding the
Art Review A Survey of British Art In All Its Branches 1938   1938    Page: 12
 
 The Art World in 1938
Profiles: click on name to see profile
 
Greenham, Robert Duckworth [1906-1976. UK. Painter]
Zinkeisen, Anna Katrina [1901-1976. UK. Painter/Graphic Designer/Illustrator/Muralist]
Footnotes:
Harvesting Oil painting by Robert Greenham, R.B.A., R.O.I. Exhibited at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters

Miss Consuelo Rudderforth Oil painting by Anna K. Zinkeisen, R.O.I. Exhibited at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters
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general return to conditions of sound prosperity.

The eternal controversy about the status and proper function of the Royal Academy has been revived by Wyndham Lewis, in circumstances which may be here briefly recapitulated. Mr. Wyndham Lewis painted a portrait of the famous poet and critic, T. S. Eliot, and submitted it to the Royal Academy. It was rejected. Mr. Lewis thereupon took it round to the Leicester Galleries, was much photographed (complete with scarf, big hat and pipe) alongside it, and issued to the press a series of highly truculent tirades against the Royal Academy and all its works. At the same time he continued the discussion in the correspondence columns of The Times, in company with the art critic of that journal, with Professor Thomas Bodkin, Mr. Munnings, Sir William Nicholson, and other distinguished participants. More ‘news value’ was given to the affair by Augustus John’s resignation from the rank of Royal Academician as a protest against the rejection. Hammer and tongs the combatants went at it, and as usual the Academy itself preserved a stony and dignified silence, except for a brief letter from the Secretary to correct Mr. Lewis on a point of established fact (the award of the O.M. to two Academicians).

Both the resignation of Mr. John and the general level at which the controversy was conducted seem to us deplorable—the first because it robbed the Academy of a most distinguished painter, and the second because it revealed much bad taste, bad temper and lack of balance. The Royal Academy is by no means a perfect organization, and a number of our best artists are outside its membership. But a number also are inside, and in any event an artist submitting a work to the judgment of a collective body should be prepared to accept the verdict. To put up one’s picture for exhibition and then squeal when it is rejected is childish, more especially when the protest is couched in the most intemperate language. The Academy has its faults, but Mr. John was not ‘its only artist/ George Moore once described Stephen Gooden as ‘the greatest living British artist’; Russell Flint, Clausen, Francis Dodd, Sir D. Y. Cameron, Munnings, Brangwyn, Sir Edwin Lutyens, Eric Gill (to name only a few) are men who have earned and deserved world-wide reputations. Some elections have undoubtedly been mistakes (as have many of the decisions of the hanging committee), but the wise policy is to work unremittingly for the further enhancement of the Academy’s status rather than pursue it with hysterical abuse.

The Academy ought to be for art what the Royal Society is for science, the British Academy for humanistic studies, and the Royal Colleges of Surgeons and of Physicians for the medical profession. Admittedly it is not, and in view of the strong passions and wide divergences of view that always prevail among pictorial artists it is doubtful whether that happy,
Art Review A Survey of British Art In All Its Branches 1938   1938    Page: 13
 
 The Art World in 1938
Profiles: click on name to see profile
 
Adams, Bernard [1884-1965. UK. Painter]
Browning, Amy Katherine [1882-1978. UK. Painter]
Footnotes:
Cornfield, Marsworth Oil painting by Bernard Adams, R.P, R.O.I. Exhibited at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters By courtesy of the Hon. Mrs. Pleydell Bouverie

Nude Oil painting by A. K. Browning, R.O.I. Exhibited at the Leger Galleries
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unquestioned status will ever be attained. Still it should be clearly envisaged as an ideal, and one which can be brought nearer by the presence at Burlington House of artists of the calibre of Augustus John, and made less possible by jealousy, recrimination, and public controversy conducted at a standard not far removed from that of the public bar. It may well be that the constitution of the Academy needs a drastic overhaul. That Possibility should be borne in mind, and if constitutional revision can help towards a better state we hope it will be undertaken.

H.M. the King’s first Birthday Honours List contained the names of three well-known and highly respected artists. Arnesby Brown, who received a knighthood, has long been appreciated for his far- flung pastoral vistas, which combine quietly telling colour with a sense of design that is all the better for being unobtrusive. Frank O. Salisbury, who was made C.V.O., must share with the late P. A. de Laszlo the reputation of having painted the portraits of more distinguished people than anyone in this generation. Salisbury is also, of course, the painter par excellence of the pageantry of big public occasions, grouping his crowds with great skill and never failing to catch the spirit of the scene. Ethel Walker, awarded the C.B.E., takes an honoured place among the most sensitive of our landscape painters, and is also an incisive portraitist and sculptor. One might wish that more artists received these distinctions from time to time, but it may at least be said (as in the matter of the John and Steer purchases for the royal collection) that a good beginning has been made to the reign.

The obituary list this year is, happily, far less heavy than last, but it none the less contains some eminent names. Right at the beginning of 1938 died Will Dyson, a brilliant and hard-hitting cartoonist. In January, too, the oldest British sculptor, Adrian Jones, went from among us. His best-known work is the Quadriga at Constitution Hill. In Sir John Burnet and Sir Guy Dawber architecture lost two distinguished sons, of whom the last-mentioned was also founder of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England. Another keen worker for the amenities of the countryside was F. L. Griggs, an etcher and draughtsman of considerable power, especially when working on architectural subjects.

In concluding this article, we would congratulate the Wildenstein Galleries on their initiative in presenting an exhibition of American painting last May and June. This collection included work by some of the foremost painters of the United States; the choice was not limited to one particular school or style, and there were many canvases of more than average merit and importance. There ought to be more exhibitions of American art over here, and of British art in the United States. Neither country really knows what the other is doing in the field of the fine arts.