19 APRIL 1946, Page 16

ALFRED STEVENS AND HUMILITY SIR,—It is not surprising that your

art critic should dislike the work of Alfred Stevens, as it is axiomatic with the younger school of critics that anything, whether it be music, art, literature, the drama, religion or politics, which existed prior to the auspicious day on which they them- selves entered this world, is valueless. It is, however, surprising that he should find a lack of humility in a man who, master of every material in which an artist works—bronze, marble, wood or paint—always shunned the limelight and was so modest about his drawings that it is said he never exhibited a single example and only signed one which he gave as a present to a fellow-workman. But the most surprising fact of all is that Mr. Michael Ayrton should recognise humility as a virtue.—Yours faithfully, VERE E. COTTON. Langdale, Grassendale Park, Liverpool, r9.