THE LONDON ARTISTS' ASSOCIATION, 92 NEW BOND STREET MRS. VANESSA
BELL.
Not being one of those who have subscribed whole-heartedly to the rather indiscriminate praise of Mrs. Vanessa Bell's work, I should have said that she would have gone on painting like Mrs. Bell as long as she painted. Her pictures, if only for their sense of colour, have always commanded a certain respect, but they had very definite limitations. One always felt that Mrs. Bell would do something if she forgot herself and really let herself go, and in her paintings of recent years there has been little sign of the unexpected happening. How- ever, it has happened. Mrs. Bell has let herself go, and in these new paintings there is evidence of a sudden advance as unlooked for as it is delightful. Her sense of colour has always been extraordinarily good, and she has been blessed with technical competency and a swift, brilliant fluency of style, but there has been something about her painting in the past- a certain deadness, or perhaps it was only over-sophistication- that was invariably disappointing. A change, however, has occurred, and all these new pictures express a kind of spon- taneous gaiety and innocence which is charming. Oeoasion- ally one feels, as in " Wading," the study of a naked boy in sunlight, that she has tackled something which is a little beyond her powers at present, but " The White Urn," " Two Children," " Tulips in a Green Jar," " Child Drawing" and " The Foundling Hospital," are first-rate paintings : memor- able for their colour and excellence of pure painting. " Child Drawing " especially has qualities which one will not forget for a very long time. DAVID FINCHAII.
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