Title

Drawings. Gayfield Shaw's Gallery in Penzance chambers...

Author

Author not identified

Source

Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney) 18 April 1831 - ongoing

Details

13 December 1920, p.6, col.4.

Publication date

13 December 1920

Type

Exhibition review

Language

English

Country of context

Australia

Full text

DRAWINGS.
Gayfield Shaw's gallery in Penzance chambers, which now carries with it an air of comfort and luxury owing to its lounges, tables, and antiques, is the scene of a collection of monotypes, pencil drawings, etchings, and aquatints, which will remain freely on view until December 24.

There are two water colours of note by J. J. Hilder "Old Gums" derives an essential charm from its softly harmonious colouring! "The Old Cottage" Is painted with unusual strength of effect. The pencil drawing studies have a purely technical interest for artists and students, and will be examined with care by visitors.

A. Henry Fullwood sends in monotypes of English landscapes, the outcome of delightful wanderings amidst the open green downs and ruddy woods within reach of London. He shows "Windsor Castle" royally crowning the horizon line, as glimpsed above the gigantic umbrageous trees which occupy the foreground. The artist has caught the romance of the "imperial swelling theme". His "Kentish Hop Farm" with cone-shaped tops of the oast houses where the hops are dried, and the road through the village, is exalted by the charm of atmospheric effect; and there is a fine suggestion of height and distance in "Haymaking."

Sydney Ure Smith bas a group of etchings presenting amongst others "The Brickworks" with impressive effect, and a tender suggestion in "The Cottage, Hartley." Jessie Traill's "Beautiful Victoria [Beautiful Victims]" is a clever etching of forest trees, wonderfully tall and straight; and "Hole in the Trees" presents a contrast between the light of the opening and the gloom of the wood. The former of these was exhibited both at the Royal Academy and the Panama Exposition in 1914.

Lionel Lindsay's range of subject is astonishingly wide, and he succeeds in various directions. His "Timber Belt" is fascinating, as also another attractive etching, "The Little Balcony," the graceful ornamentation, of which frames in like a picture two Spanish coquettes gazing down from it. An aquatint shows "Herodiade in the Mirror," sinister and bold in her flaunted nudity between two flaring candles, ' The scene is poetised by Mallarme in the lines "D'un miroir qui reflete en son calme dormant Herodiade au clair regard de diamant." This drawing distinctly poaches upon the manner of that Genius of the Nude, Norman Lindsay. "Beauty's Fortune" possesses an innocent charm denied to "Madame Mystery," a plain woman of fashion in the altogether who holds a reception quite unabashed, at which a periwigged gallant stoops with infinite grace to kiss her proffered hand. "Debut" is a characteristic Lindsay-esque conception in which a dreadful, undersized demon, black and with horns, holds in his hands the bouquet of a haughty, fair maiden whom he presents to the social world. And there are others. Etchings by Eirene Mort, Herbert Rose, David Barker, R. H. Addison, F. Britton, Birchland Jones, and Tom Roberts, aquatints by Fred. A. Campbell, and a lithograph by Birchland Jones are all worthy of attention. |

[Sydney Morning Herald, 13 December 1920, p.6, col.4.]

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Last Updated

13 Aug 2012