ART
Reflections on a Charity Bazaar
THAT, as an Academician very justly put it, being what the " United Artists' Exhibition " is, good manners have natu- rally forbidden depreciation of individual contributions. The artists have contributed as they could, and the critic's job has been to prove his discrimination by picking for praise the objects that attract his practised eye, as a customer might among the unselected junk at the Caledonian Market. He may also hint at improvements in the rules for future shows. My experience, as a free-lance, was a series of delightful surprises: one, by a familiar hand, has already been praised by The Spectator's regular critic—namely, the Daphne Charlton of Fairlie Harmar (825). This novel and lovely evocation against the Chelsea fireplace which figured in Whistler's Little White Girl is, in my private list, the out- standing portrait of the show, with Sir Walter Russell's Marion (223) for competitor. Next among my " surprises " were two sculptures by a man whose name I had never heard, Mr. Whitney-Smith. One is in half-length, a plain- headed lady with receding chin, named The Optimist (1166), beautiful in decided character of the kind that makes namby- pamby " idealism " look silly, and moulded into modest con- sanguinity with the great family, Donatello-Hpudon. The second is a mask, The Irishman (2251), equally good on a less extended scale. Next in the order of my finds was another unknown, Mr. Knighton-Hammond, whose Sussex Byre (134) is a water-colour rare in its free, full brushing on an unobtrusively secure foundation of form. The four-line hanging of drawings is, indeed, as Mr. Piper has said, daunt- ing: what is wanted is a two-line at most, and others dis- tributed in manageable doses on screens.
I could add thirty or more from a first review, and should covet the task of arranging one room of exquisites from what is necessarily a semi-selected crowd. But in all this I am trespassing in order that I may propose an excellent game for these winter days. Let the Academy put up on the Sales Counter, to the right of entrance, lists, numbers only, of the works which have found favour with critics in the chief London dailies and weeklies. Then let visitors mark on a blank page at the end of their catalogue, but with- out reference to it, the numbers of the works they themselves unguidedly enjoy most, in the order of the galleries ; reduce
them to ten ; then consult, for their own edification or amuse- ment, and possible coincidences, the lists displayed, and leave a duplicate, adding name and address, of their own list with the attendant for analytic comparison. One or more of the papers cited might care to print the upshot. Now some suggestions for the future: r. The Academy, obviously, has been too generous a host for what is not its own exhibition, but one of guests invited.
Two pieces, in different mediums, or one, instead of three. would be more reasonable.
2. Admission, by way of the complete membership of all societies, is hopeless, because of the proliferation of those bodies since my first proposal was made. The " Marine Painters," for example, to whom alone a separate room is allotted, are constituted by subject, and cut across grouping by medium or artistic affinity. Moreover, there are no hard- and-fast groupings nowadays. Painters frequently belong to or exhibit with two or more societies, Academicians included, and under pressure of rents these lose any marked distinction, being kept solvent by fees paid for exhibition by a floating population of the unattached : " New English," " London Group," old " British Artists " and Royal Academy are with- out separate character. That is why, in my revised scheme,
(" The Uses of The Royal Academy " in Nineteenth Century and After, August, 1935), I wrote : This (the former) suggestion might be bettered. The Academy is badly in want of a second secretary for outside negotiations, like Mr. Eden politically, one whose business it should be to keep fully informed by visiting regularly all exhibitions, including one-man shows . . . An ad hoc official would be able to consult with secre- taries of the groups in making a selection, and a general committee of nominees might then hang the whole gathering. In this, works already exhibited, or substitutes (for those sold), would figure, the idea being to obtain a picked review of total activity in the past year.
3. White marble, if permissible anywhere under our cold light, is destructive in a picture-gallery.
4. The chief room, Gallery III, should be carefully plotted in respect of centres and sub-centres, which ought to be of imposing quality as well as size : an admirable result, on the
other hand, of the present charitable object is the absence of commissioned photograph-portraits, too many of which infest
and dilute the summer show.
Let us all now encourage the Academy to take the step of following-up this admirably intentioned but too casual bazaar with an annual Winter Exhibition, carefully devised on some such lines as I have indicated. The attendances, so far, are good : the sales are poor. Come forward, collectors, and
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