DLA095-0088  Transcription

‘Art Galleries and Exhibitions’, The Pioneer, 26 July 1924

The New English Art Club’s “Seventieth Exhibition,” which just closed, did not call for much comment. It is queer how absolutely one differs in opinions at times from persons with whom ordinarily one is inclined to agree! The “Manchester Guardian” Art critic, who knows a great deal about painting, and who as a rule weighs his words, remarked about Augustus John’s portrait of Mr. Roy Campbell, the poet, included in this show, that it was “not memorable.” To me it seems the most memorable portrait of the year. The poet’s face and figure, noteworthy themselves, are fixed almost indelibly, I feel, on my mind. He is of a dreamy type, youthful looking, with a long, clean-shaven face, longnecked, loose-limbed, with sinewy hands—a cow-boy turned artist. The whole picture, from the big black sombrero hat downwards, is in quiet shades, goldish browns and greenish blacks and greys. It is priced at £600, and if I were a very rich man (or a speculative Art dealer) I would buy it.

In most Galleries you have to enquire the price of any picture, but at the Goupil, at all events in the case of their summer show of Modern British Art, you have the prices printed in their catalogue. Mr. Sargent’s case is an exemption, his five pictures not being for sale; beautiful things they are, especially one of Venice, and one of the Cathedral of Arras, in ruins, painted in August, 1918: a noteworthy date. Most of us in these hard times cannot dream of buying pictures by famous artists, and therefore we do not  trouble to go into the question of their prices, but it may be worth while, just once in a way, to note a few of the figures mentioned on this occasion. A landscape by Augustus John, a view at Aigues Mortes, is priced at £170. A study by Sir William Orpen, entitled “In the Artist's Studio,” is £350. An admirable work by James Pryde, “The Ruin,” is marked £425, and a small one, also quite striking, “The Window,” £75. Two still life studies by William Nicholson, “Coloured Gloves” and “Harvest Jgs," are 250 guineas apiece. They are characteristic works, all of them.

MD

11/12/2007