ERIC ICENNINGTON AND JOHN ARMSTRONG. Tim LEICESTER GALLERIES.
The Leicester Galleries have opened their autumn season with an exhibition of both painting and sculpture. One room is devoted to twelve pieces of sculpture by Mr. Erie Kennington, while forty paintings and drawings by Mr. John Armstrong occupy the other. As both artists are strongly individualistic, the exhibition is more than interesting. Mr. Kennington's twelve pieces boil down, in reality, to ten, as three are of the same subject—a small boy astride a toy engine. After seeing the large piece in stone, the two smaller, in brass and bronze, seem to lose effect. His baby, Boy, and Prayer, a pair of delightfully modelled hands pressed palm to palm, are two direct pieces, and in Fulfilment, showing a mother holding her babe aloft, the small amount of dis- tortion, the exaggerated length of the arms, and the diminished size of the waist, seem only to make the whole more satis- factory. The two figures in Unity are modelled so as to form a solid mass, attention being rivetted on the abstract idea. Every piece compels careful attention. Mr. John Armstrong's work at first sight reminds one ol Chirico, and in many ways these two artists seem to follow the same lines, especially in the way their compositions are built up. In all his work Mr. Armstrong lays such stress on the third dimension that it would be interesting to see him turn his hand to sculpture. This exhibition includes some effective line drawings of nudes, and some decidedly abstract compositions, like his Musical Machine. In his middle register come his Rape of Helen and The Amazons, both of which are highly decorative. The Archangk is nuithe- inatically composed of geometrical components. Though one may not agree with his representations of such subjects as Cleopatra or The Station Master's Wife one cannot help
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