P. Wilson Steer, O.M. “Storm Clouds, Whitstable” Water-colour
[From the collection of Mr. Ian Greenlees)
with, we hope, a livelier interest in what artistically we are doing or trying to do ? Even the inartistic allied club members would depart with a nodding acquaintance of the British art of our time.
The Council’s appeal to artists and owners for pictures, drawings, and prints in several processes was instantaneous. There was only one refusal and that for a good reason.
Naturally enough the greatest works have been deposited in places of safety far removed from the capital, but that did not materially diminish the liveliness of the three shows which already have been arranged. The collections, varying in size according to suitable club space available from 40 to 120 works each, are, through the courtesy of the Director and
Trustees of the Tate Gallery, selected in that building and constantly changed, one show following another at appropriate intervals.
It is high time that we began to trouble about introducing our art to our foreign friends. In the past, official patronage has for the most part been limited to participation in great International Exhibitions. But these are not particularly frequent and are limited to the exhibitions in the leading countries. I would instance Turin 1911, Ghent 1913, Paris 1925, Brussels 1935 and the New York World’s Fair 1939. We wish the Poles, the Czechs, the Greeks and the Yugoslavs to go back with an added interest in our culture. I recollect
some years ago when dining at the house of a great collector of modern French art in Copenhagen, at which all of the local directors of art and leading painters and critics were present, one of these directors, the youngest, said to me across the table “Now that Sargent and Orpen have gone, have you any painters in England to-day?” In the gallery after dinner I talked to that young fellow, explained that Sargent was an American and Orpen an Irishman, but that we had two tolerably good Welshmen, an occasional Scot and a bunch of Englishmen well worthy of his close study. He had studied in Munich, Paris and Rome—but not much.
These exhibitions, then, should help to wipe out, to a small extent, such ignorance. The Council has held exhibitions in Austria, Czechoslovakia, South Africa, Italy, Poland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Canada, the U.S.A., South America, Spain, Portugal, Turkey and Iceland during the past seven years, and will continue so to exhibit abroad and over
seas, provided artists are willing to play, and to bring to the Council’s notice their best work from time to time. Perhaps we are too modest, or do we not care? In France when an artist produces something of which he is proud, he at once communicates the fact to all and sundry. How rarely that occurs here! Distin
guished art lovers from abroad between 1918 and 1938 have frequently asked why our art clubs failed to
[From the collection of Mr. Ian Greenlees)
with, we hope, a livelier interest in what artistically we are doing or trying to do ? Even the inartistic allied club members would depart with a nodding acquaintance of the British art of our time.
The Council’s appeal to artists and owners for pictures, drawings, and prints in several processes was instantaneous. There was only one refusal and that for a good reason.
Naturally enough the greatest works have been deposited in places of safety far removed from the capital, but that did not materially diminish the liveliness of the three shows which already have been arranged. The collections, varying in size according to suitable club space available from 40 to 120 works each, are, through the courtesy of the Director and
Trustees of the Tate Gallery, selected in that building and constantly changed, one show following another at appropriate intervals.
It is high time that we began to trouble about introducing our art to our foreign friends. In the past, official patronage has for the most part been limited to participation in great International Exhibitions. But these are not particularly frequent and are limited to the exhibitions in the leading countries. I would instance Turin 1911, Ghent 1913, Paris 1925, Brussels 1935 and the New York World’s Fair 1939. We wish the Poles, the Czechs, the Greeks and the Yugoslavs to go back with an added interest in our culture. I recollect
some years ago when dining at the house of a great collector of modern French art in Copenhagen, at which all of the local directors of art and leading painters and critics were present, one of these directors, the youngest, said to me across the table “Now that Sargent and Orpen have gone, have you any painters in England to-day?” In the gallery after dinner I talked to that young fellow, explained that Sargent was an American and Orpen an Irishman, but that we had two tolerably good Welshmen, an occasional Scot and a bunch of Englishmen well worthy of his close study. He had studied in Munich, Paris and Rome—but not much.
These exhibitions, then, should help to wipe out, to a small extent, such ignorance. The Council has held exhibitions in Austria, Czechoslovakia, South Africa, Italy, Poland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Canada, the U.S.A., South America, Spain, Portugal, Turkey and Iceland during the past seven years, and will continue so to exhibit abroad and over
seas, provided artists are willing to play, and to bring to the Council’s notice their best work from time to time. Perhaps we are too modest, or do we not care? In France when an artist produces something of which he is proud, he at once communicates the fact to all and sundry. How rarely that occurs here! Distin
guished art lovers from abroad between 1918 and 1938 have frequently asked why our art clubs failed to