DLA094-0138  Transcription

C. M., ‘Peers in Paint. The New Laszlo Portraits’, Westminster Gazette, 31 May 1923

Fluency and facility are the striking characteristics of the portraits of Mr. Philip A. de Laszlo at the French Gallery, 120, Pall Mall.^[1] Mr. Laszlo’s talents are not of a very high order, but he can produce an effective likeness and fill a canvas “with an air”; and since, contrary to the general rule, his qualities are best appreciated in quantity, the directors of the gallery were well advised to pack it with half the Peerage, as it would seem.

To be precise, there are 76 canvases, and in looking at them one cannot help wishing not only that some of our good native portrait painters had Mr. Laszlo’s opportunities, but also that they could add to their depth and refinement some-thing of his extraordinary ease of manner. For it would be idle to deny his success in reproducing the material aspect of the fashionable world, even if he does it with an exuberance which is anything but English.

Actually the best work in the present exhibition is the sketch head of “M. Léonce Bénédite,” Director of the Luxembourg Museum [110437], but “The Right Hon. the Earl of Balfour, K.G., etc.,” lent by Trinity College, Cambridge [2707], is excellent in composition, and “The Countess of Kerry” [3143] is one of several female portraits which present, at least, the charm of external appearance.

C. M.