DLA016-0081  Transcription 

WOLMER WOOD,

MARLOW COMMON,

MARLOW, BUCKS.

July 17th 1926

My dear friend

I was glad to get your card and to hear that you are enjoying yourself in Normandy: I hope the rest will do you good – as you have not had any for a long time. I expect your American stay meant more strenuous work than you had at home and I did not notice that you were resting much after you came back, so it is about time that you did have a quiet spell.^[1] You ought not to go on working at such high pressure all the time.

We got home on Wednesday after a very pleasant three weeks in  Cornwall: We had lovely weather all the time and as some friends of ours who have a car were staying in the same house we went about a lot and saw many delightful places. I worked steadily all the time and have brought back twenty seven sketches – watercolours

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pastels, and chalk drawings – so I have quite a stock of subjects to work from: I did rather carefully detailed things so as to have stuff that I can use for reference – they are all small but I can do larger things from them. I wish you had been with us as I am sure you would have found the coast scenery interesting: the rocks in that part of Cornwall have the most strangely fantastic shapes and they vary a lot in colours and the colour of the sea is amazing at times. Cannot we manage a trip together some day to this part of the world? I would like to see how you would attack a rock subject, as I think you would get some very effective results. Rocks appeal to me by their variety of form and detail and their structural character as well as their beauty of colours and light and shade and they are very interesting to draw – I wonder whether they would make the same sort of appeal to you.

I am sorry we missed your reception when you showed the Archbishop's portrait [4632], but we heard from the Kendricks^[2] that it was a great

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occasion – they enjoyed it greatly and were very much impressed by the picture. They are coming down to stay with us for a few days towards the end of this month so I shall hear more fully about it then.

I hope you like the place where you are and that you are getting fine weather: it has been fairly hot here but not unpleasantly so, though London was certainly very stuffy when I was up there on Thursday – I had to go up see shows that day – and I hope that both you and Mrs de Laszlo are really feeling better for the change of air and surroundings.

Always yours

A.L. Baldry.

Editorial Note:

Alfred Lys Baldry (1858-1939), British artist and art critic who authored several articles on de László and who was a close family friend; for biographical notes, see [3562].

SMDL

16/12/2017