ART
From Delacroix to Dufy. At the Lefevre. Daumier Lithographs. At the St. George's.—Mary Potter. At Tooth's—Collection of the late Sir William Rothenstein. At the Leicester.
AT the top of your list put the show of French painting " from Delacroix to Dufy " at the Lefevre Gallery. It includes three magnificent_ Cizanries and very _fine work by Seurat, Sisley, Corot, Renoir, Pisarro, Degas, Braque—but there, my catalogue became so disfigured with pencilled expressions of delight that I will not attempt to discriminate, but only say that this beautifully balanced exhibition is -the best of its -size I can remember. I hope everyone will go to see it ; the proceeds from the sale. of the catalogues go to that most deserving of causes, the Contemporary Art Society. At the St. George's Gallery there is a large show of Daunner lithographs to remind us of the depths to which political comment has subsequently sunk. Of especial interest are the early, pre- Charivari prints,- which Include the big Le Ventre Legiilatif . Whence to the fastnesses of the Anglo-French Art Centre, where M. Bernard Lorjou, a contemporary French painter still in ins thirties, shatters the peace of St. John's Wood with his drawings and paintings. These pictures, fundamentally homely and realistic, although staccato in colour, intentionally clumsy in choice of subject and usually distorted with some violence, have an affinity with those of Van Gogh. They are pictures to be viewed from a distance, when their crudity fades into unexpected subtleties. I mistrust the calculated passion with which the paint (which, judging by the quantities M. Lorjon uses, must be.cheaper in Paris than it is in London) is applied, and I cannot agree with M. Valdemar George that his work provides a signpost to anything in particular. The best of his paintings and the best of his drawings do, however, show genuine power. After these elephantine trumpetings, Mary Potter's work, now on view at Messrs. Tooth's, sounds like the squeaking of a mouse in the wainscot. But if she refuses to transgress her limitations, let no one deny the sweet and decorative charm of her colour. When she does not rely too much upon this but remembers to design as well—which is mostly in her still-lifes—her paintings are delightful. Finally, to the late Sir-William Rothenstein's revealing collections of Indian and European drawings and paintings at the Leicester Galleries. The former, of the Rajput Schools, influenced by Persian painting, show a sinuous and sensuous delicacy of line and colour ;-the main emphasis in the latter is upon John, Conder and Sir Max Beerbohm, one of whose drawings of Oscar Wilde is, in particular, superbly and
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