The Cotman Collection | 43

Cotmania. Vol. IV. 1929-30

Archive: SDK Sydney Decimus Kitson Archive
Reference Number: SDK/1/2/1/4
Page: 17 verso (numbered 30)


  • Description

    Three newspaper clippings on Laurence Binyon, Mily Possoz and Cecil Hunt, and an exhibition at the Tate Gallery

    3 newspaper clippings
    {Morning Post}
    The success of Laurence Binyon's exhibition of English Watercolours in Japan

    {The Times, 29.1.30}
    A comparison of Mily Possoz and Cecil Hunt, in which Mily Possoz comes out better.

    {The Times, 31.1.30}
    Description of an upcoming exhibition at the Tate gallery of English School Watercolours

    Date:

  • Transcription

    {Morning Post Clipping}
    AN AMBASSADOR OF ART

    English Poet's Visit To Japan

    From our special correspondent
    A great impression as been made in Japan by the collection of British water colours which Mr Laurence Binyon has been showing in Tokyo.
    Mr. Binyon, who has now returned to England, told me yesterday that he received an invitation last year to give a course of lectures in Tokyo on "Landscape in English Poetry and Painting," and that the idea of popularising British Art in Japan greatly appealed to him.
    "European oil-painting," he added, "is altogether foreign to Japanese taste, but the intimate quality of Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Century water colours is quickly understood."
    The Japanese, he started, regard painting as a branch of writing, and for this reason Blake is particularly appreciated by them. Gainsborough and Romney were, he added, well represented in the collection.
    An average of over 500 visited the collection every day, and audiences of more than 1,000 were present at Mr. Binyon's lectures.
    As the ambassador of English painting, Mr Binyon was given ready access to many jealously guarded private collections in Japan.
    Mr Binyon was much impressed with the good taste shown by the Japanese in their everyday life. The cheap goods with which they flood foreign markets are nowhere, he told me, to be found in Japan.
    Morning Post - 21.1.'30

    {The Times newspaper clipping}
    Though there is no obvious connexion between them, the present exhibitions at the galleries of the Fine Art Society, 148, New Bond-street, of recent water colours of "The Isles of the Aegean and Beyond," by that very popular painter Mr Cecil Hunt, and drypoints by Miss Mily Possoz, a Belgian artist, do lend themselves to comparison because they represent respectively a rather portentous and an engagingly frivolous attitude to subject matter. Of the two, Miss Possez is by far the more serious artist, but she finds life itself amusing. To put into a sentence what it is that repels in the water colours of Mr Hunt, he seems to be trying to do what Turner did in his latest watercolours without the preliminary labour that Turner went through. Of Mr Hunt's skill in handling watercolours there can be no question, but there is no grasp or even recognition of structure under the skill. It is this, as much as anything else, that makes his colour displeasing. His colour is not too bright intrinsically, certainly to looks brighter than Turner's, but it looks too bright because it does not respond the changes of plane, which, whether they occur in solid facts or atmospheric volumes, gives logic to the colour of the latest and slightest Turner drawing. In looking at Mr Hunt's watercolours one ceases to wonder why young English artists are driven towards Cezanne. Probably Cezanne is not nearly such a good model for the young English artist as Turner, but he did mark with excess of logic the relations between colour and form. For the lack of these relations Mr Hunt's colour is obtrusive - with a slaty effect - even when he paints grey.
    Mr Hunt's work has been sharply criticized because his reputation will bear it, and there is little likelihood of any of his admirers being put off by what is said here. For ourselves we find something to admire in his slighter and more modest drawings. In "Entering the Dardanelles" the way the golden headland seems to sit upon the heaving water is very well realised, and "Bay of Eleusis," "Piraeus-Athens," "Bosporous," and "On the Acropolis, Athens," all show some recognition of the conditions under the superficial cleverness with which they are executed.
    The Times, 29.1.'30

    {The Times newspaper clipping, 2}
    The Times, 31.1.'30
    ENGLISH WATERCOLOURS

    LOAN EXHIBITION AT THE TATE GALLERY
    Opening to the public on Monday, there is in Room VIII at the Tate Gallery a very important loan collection of watercolours of the English School. They are the property of Mr H. Powell, of Guildford, and it is understood that they will ultimately be presented to the nation. There are 130 drawings, representing roughly a period of 100 years, or from 1750 to 1860. What specially distinguishes the collection is its comprehensiveness, hardly an artist of note, from Alexander Cozens, who died in 1786, to T M Richardson (1813-90), being unrepresented. Thus it enables one to see what a great variety of talent is expressed in this peculiarly native art.
    Most of the Turners are early works, one, a drawing of "Tivoli," very early indeed, and quite possibly a translation from J R Cozens made under the patronage of Dr Monro, who was in the habit of commissioning drawings from the young Turner and Girtin for half-a-crown and their supper. Girtin is represented by several fine drawings, a noble study of "Guisbrough Abbey" among them. His master, Edward Dayes, is to be seen in a delicate drawing of "Winchester West Gate." Gainsborough's second period is recalled by a romantic watercolour of "Old Weston Church, Bath" - almost in the mood of Samuel Palmer. There is an interesting comparison between two sepia drawings of "Kenilworth Castle," by David Cox, and "Loading Hay," by Peter De Wint.
    Generally we regard Cox as the more atmospheric painter of the two, but in this case he comes out the more solid. Undoubtedly a feature of the collection is the series of drawings by Alexander Cozens, whose works are rarely seen. "Padua," in a storm is a particularly complicated composition for him. Other drawings of special note are "A Sea-marsh," by William Turner, of Oxford; "Windsor Park," by Paul Sandby; "Knaresborough" by J Varley; "Dover," by A T Devis; "The Ramparts, Dover front," by Cotman; and "The Garden of Eden," by John Martin - the painting of "Belshazzar's Feast." This is indeed a collection formed with great discrimination.

Three newspaper clippings on Laurence Binyon, Mily Possoz and Cecil Hunt, and an exhibition at the Tate Gallery