Charles Keene ' THE Arts Council will have on view
at its gallery, 4 St. James's Square, until August 9th, the finest exhibition of the work of our greatest (Beardsley enthusiasts dissenting !) English black-and-white artist, Charles Keene, that has been brought together since the display at the Fine Arts Society shortly after his death in 1891. That exhibition consisted of 250 works ; this contains only eighty-one, but the quality is extremely high. Sir Kenneth Clark, who has selected the drawings and written an admirable note for the catalogue, has been able to show many drawings from the galleries at Melbourne and Perth (in addition -to those from English sources) which are unfamiliar to the present generation. Drawings like " The Deck of a Yacht " and " Landscape with a Road by a Brook," both from the Melbourne gallery, and " The Lay Figure at the Window," from Sir Kenneth Clark's collection, will add to Keene's general reputation. Most of hii" work has fortunately stayed in Britain, and Charles Emanuel for many years guarded the best of it —as " The Settlers," " Miss Rosey," " The Quilted Petticoat " and many other wonderfid drawings remind us. I missed " Keene's Mother,-" and I found that the shadows in the ambitious " Music Room," which is given a place of honour, still seemed to refuse to " lie down "—perhaps a' glorious failure. There are drawings in the National Gallery of Scotland, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, that one would have been glad to see here, but the Arts Council has brought together more than enough to establish Keene's claim to pre-eminence. One or two examples of his work in colour might have been shown, if only as - curiosities—the fine " Self-Portrait " at the Tate was presumably not available—and a more serious fault is-the failure to show any of the excellent etchings. An interesting feature is the presence of two " suggestion books " prepared by Joseph Crawhall Senior, from which Keene adapted much of his material for Punch.
A visitor may, perhaps, bring away with him the.general reflection that, while Keene in his sketches and studies shows the tireless quality of a master, in his finished Punch drawings the period interest predominates. But everyone who enjoys drawing should see this exhibition and take pride in this modest English artist, who—though he has long been " known to his own "—should now be accorded
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