DLA095-0077  Transcription

‘Polite Portraits’, Kenya Observer, 2 August 1924

Society is crowding in its smartest gowns and care to the French Gallery in Pall Mall, where that fashionable painter, Mr. Philip de Laszlo, is exhibiting some of his more recent works. It must be infinitely less of an ordeal to be painted by Philip de Laszlo than by Sargent or Augustus John. There is no “psychological” impertinence about his portraits of distinguished people. His admiring eyes see them all with the most polite adulation, and he paints them looking youthful and beautiful in their most swagger uniforms and costumes. The Queen of Rumania [3200], the Pope [6690], Count Moroni, O.C. [6363], the Vatican Guards [11046], Lord Lansdowne [5959], and Lord Londonderry [6136] are among his latest “subjects” and he treats them all quite objectively. It may not be profoundly interesting for their contemporary compeers, but it must be decidedly reassuring to their posterity. All the Laszlo portraits are “looking their best,” and calculated to make the most agreeable ancestors.

MD

12/11/2007