El Ministerio del Ambiente como Autoridad Ambiental Nacional y

won him a gold medal at the Amsterdam International Exhibition. His manner of painting, without recourse to previous studies, was not aca.demic in any traditional sense, but his success was such as to ensure his election to the Royal Academy as Associate in 1919 and Academician in 1926. His Diploma Work, Miss Anne Harcourt, is a vivacious study of a seated young girl holding a violin. It is not difficult to understand his success, with portraiture. Harcourt acted as temporary Director of the Royal Academy Schools for the Summer term of 1927 before Halter Westley Russell was appointed Keeper.

Whereas Harcourt had taught at Bushey and Hospitalfield, Russ­ ell had taught at the Slade School. He had studied under Freder­ ick Brown at the Westminster School, worked for a time as art ill­ ustrator, and in 1895 he had become an assistant master at the Slade. Russell1 had by then started his long association with the Hew Eng-

4

lish Art Club , exhibiting genre, landscape and portrait work. His 5

long association with Tonics and Steer, prompted C.H.Collins Baker to write an appreciative review of Russell’s work in The Studio of 1910^- Russell’s election as Associate in 1920 was seen by many as. further evidence of the Royal Academy’s policy of assimilating older 1 Harcourt first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1893 with a

Keats’ subject (from Ode to the Hightingalc) entitled At tbe Window. See G.Frederick Lees The Art of George Harcourt, The Studio LXX Fo.290 May 1917 pp I6O-I69.

2 In 1901 he was appointed Governor of the Art School at Hospit- alfield, near Arbroath. Wjdile there he was commissioned by members of the Stock Exchange for a large fresco The Founding* of the Bank of England in 1694»

3 Harcourt worked as Herkomer*s assistant for a time before 1901* In 1909 he returned to Bushey where he continued to live.

4 He exhibited at the Hew English Art Club from 1893> s-nd >*Tas listed as a member in 1895*

5 Tonks had been a student at the Westminster School of Art wTith Russell.

6

The Studio L Ho.209 August 1910 pp 171-178 C.H.Collins Baker ThePaintings of Walter W.Russell.

or more established members of the New English Art Club. Its wisdom was sanctioned by the generally enthusiastic response to Russell’s painting Nr Kinney in the Summer Exhibition of 1920^. T;wo years later Malcolm Salaman recalled how important the exhibition of that picture had been when it coincided with the

’. . . belated official recognition of an artist whose modern­ ity of outlook was concerned always with artistic Yitality, whether this was derived from principles that had appealed to him most persuasively in the practice of Whistler and the French Impressionists, or of Constable, or in any other mast-

erly?influences through which he had developed his individual­ ity. ’

Upon his election as Royal Academician it is interesting that Russ— ell should have deposited another portrait, Alice, despite his ach­ ievements in landscape and other subjects. The Chantrey Bequest purchase of 1925 (The Blue Dress ,Plate

30

)may also be classified as a portrait.

In 1927 the Sculptor Henry Poole was promoted to full Academ­ ician, only a year before his death. He had long enjoyed a reputa—

■3

tion for his work in conjunction with architecture , and had worked on camouflage during the Great War. After his eleotion as Associate

4 in 1920 Poole was the Master of the Royal Academy Sculpture School from

1921 until 1927

during a period when certain efforts were being made to encourage students to direct their work- towards architect­ ural application. During the last few years of his life, however, Poole turned to direct carving, which won approbation from Kineton 1 The Studio’s reviewer called it ’one of the chief successes of

the exhibition1' (LXXXIX No.327 June 1920 p 128) although The Connoisseur’s critic thought that ’its humour owes at least as much to the sitter as to the artist’ (LYII June 1920 p 116) 2 Malcolm C.Salaman The Art of Walter W.Russell A.R.A., The

Studio LXXXIII No. 347 February 1922 pp 8O-85.

3 His obituary in Apollo VIII, No

.46

October 1928.. p 238, assoc­ iated him with the Lambeth Group, ’which is largely composed of men who have worked in architectural sculpture. ’

4 Poole had himself studied at the Royal Academy Schools in 1892. It would seem that Poole's tenure of office did-not escape cen­

sure in 1927 (despite his affable nature) when the Schools Com­ mittee, chaired by Blomfield, recommended that, with the Keep­ er, the ’K aster of the Sculpture School to be present 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day on not less than 2 days per week in term time . . .’ since ’the direction (of the Schools) is too cas­ ual.' See Royal Academy Annual Report 1927 pp 42—44*

.Parkgs' . His Diploma Dork, Younp; Pan (Plate 78) is a marble bust in which the stylization of the -hair and face is a direct contrast

2

with deliberately -uncarved parts of the block . The same year

(1927) Poole exhibited The Little Apple (Plate

3

o), which was bought by the Chantrey Bequest: Parkes stated that this was Poole’s most important carved piece of sculpture^, a judgement which was later endorsed by the sculptor Sargeant Jagger when he c.riled it

’ . . . one of the most successful examples of carved sculpture produced in England

.1

Although five years older than Poole Oliver Hall had also been elected Associate in 1920. The quality of Hall’s landscape work had been noticed during the l890s. He had received a bronze medal at the Chicago Exhibition of 1893, and a gold medal at the 1897 Munich

5

International Exhibition . As a member of the Royal Society of Painter Etchers since I89I his draughtsmanship and water-colour painting were admired^. Hall’s Diploma Work, Soring (Plate 79), is a boldly painted landscape by an artist devoted to that genre, and who had exhibited at the Royal Academy since I89O.' The Chantrey Be­ quest purchase of 1920, Shap Moors (Plate

7), is another illustra­

tion of that Horthern countryside which provided most of Hall’s themes.

Sir William Reid Dick had been born in Glasgow but was too young to have known the heyday of the

1

Glasgow Boys. ’ He studied at the Glasgow School of Art until 1907, but later settled in

1 Kineton Parkes The Art of Carved Sculpture, London 1937. Vol. I p 94* Parkes saw the transition from modelling to carving as having taken place in 1924 with two wooden statuettes (for St Paul’s Cathedral, the Prelate’s seat in the Chapel of St Michael and St George).

2 Poole deliberately stressed the identity of the block, even to the extent of leaving the top of the head unfinished and par­ allel to the base.

3 Kineton Parkes ibid.

4 Sargeant Jagger, A.R.A. Modelling and Sculpture in the Making, London and Hew York, 1933 P 78.

5 In 1902 Budapest awarded him a gold medal and bought Hall’s Angerton Moss.

6

Frank Kinder The Art of Oliver Hall, the Art Journal, 1904 pp

8O-84. Hinder noted the influence on Hall’s work of D.A.Will­

iamson.

London. His reputation grew rapidly in the years preceding the war and The Catanult of 1911 was purchased by the Bradford Art Gallery in 1914"*". Dick, like many contemporary sculptors, benefitied'from

2

memorial commissions after the war which included work in the kit­ chener Memorial Chapel in St Paul’s Cathedral, the Royal Air Force Memorial in London, the Menin Gate at Ypres^- and the Mar Memorial

4

at Bushey . Dick worked in a range of materials, and Granville

5

Fell noted that a certain eclecticism in Dick’s sculpture betrayed a scholarly understanding of historical masters, albeit used with

’originality and resource and always with, a modern accent.’ Dick was elected Associate in 1921? a-nd when he was elected Academician in 1928 presented The Child (Plate 80) as his Diploma Work. In treatment, as well as in theme and material, this piece may be re­ lated to Henry Poole’s Little Apple (Plate 38). The fact that The Child is a carved piece with a certain stylization of drapery lends a peculiarly ’modern’ flavour to the group, although the Chantrey

6

Bequest’s Androdus was a bronze mask of a man inclined forward, % *

thus- emphasizing the modelling, and the 1923 Pieta in the Kitchener Memorial Chapel was frankly traditional in arrangement.

Tradition played a prominent part in the art of Charles Rick­ etts, who was also elected an Academician in 1928. Charles Shan­ non's friend who was ’hostile to realism as the enemy of the

1 See Kineton Parkes Sculpture of Today, London Vol.I pp 137-8 and H.Granville Fell Sir William Reid Dick K.C.V.O., R.A., London 1945*

2 Alfred Yockney, Modern British Sculptors; Some Younger Men, The Studio LXVII K 0.275 February 1916 pp 19-29, noted that Dick was one of the first sculptors to enlist for service in the Army. He served with the Royal Army Medical Corps.

3 Dick designed the lion which surmounted Blomfield’s Menin Gate. See Arnold Khittick Far Memorials, London, 1948 p 35 araL plate- 37-

4 Arnold Fhittick op.cit. plate 3- 5 HiGranville Fell op.cit. p v

6

A purchase of 1919-

j. 1 5 1 0 5 non , was a versatile artist"- with an unbounded admiration for Italian (and especially Venetian) art.

’Pew artists, I imagine, have such a knowledge of the history of art as. Mr Ricketts, . or are able to visualise and describe eloquently, even to the cracks and re—paintings, pictures he has seen*5. ’

Picketts had been at the Lambeth School of Art in 1882, and his col­ laboration with Charles Shannon has.already been mentioned (see above p1A2). His- election as Associate had token place in 1922 el­ even years after Shannon1s. At the time Ricketts presented his UAploraa Work, Hon Juan Challenging the Commander (Plate 8l) in 1928

he was Art Advisor to the Rational Gallery of Canada^- and a well- respected authority on painting. Hon Juan . . . presents a curious amalgam of references, complicated by the Romantic theme.

Unlike Charles Shannon, Ricketts had not been an exhibitor

during the earlier years of the New English Art Club. Augustus John, however, had exhibited there from 1899? and was listed as a member in 1903. As one of the most famous ex-students of the Slade, he was, by the time of his election as Associate in 1921, the source of'con­

siderable controversy. The Art Journal of 1909 noted that a paint­

ing by John ..

’braves opinion; whether insolently or indifferently wrho can finally say?^*

and in a later article the same year^ the authox* quoted MacCoil’s 1 John Rothenstein Modern English Painters. London 1925, Vol.I

p 101. Rothenstein used this description to emphasize the contrast between Ricketts and Lucien Pissarro.

2 A point stressed by C.Lewis Hind, Charles Ricketts: A Commen­ tary on his Activities in The Studio XLVIII. No.202 January 1910 PP 259-266. Hind listed Ricketts activities as painter, mod­ eller, illustrator, stage designer, writer, editor, connois­ seur and collector.

3 C.Lewis Hind op.cit. p.

265.

4 A position he retained from 1924-1931•

5 A review of the New English Art Club Summer Exhibition of 1909? the Art Journal

1909 p 221. The picture in question was- The

Nay Hown to the Sea.

* The temper of Mr John is rebellious against the ordinary and scornful of the pretty, and the anarch young has not yet con­ trolled or concentrated his passion to the creation of great pictures . . . Kr John has been taxed with a passion for the. ugl.y> and certainly he has avoided the pretty, which has npt ineptly been called the ugly spoiled.*

It was in portraiture that John appeared to excel when Charles Mar­ riott praised his work in The Studio in. April 1920^. The following year John was elected Associate of the Royal Academy, perhaps a logical result of the continued recruitment from the ITew English Art Club but one which was regarded with horror by the conservative el­

ement within the art world. Indeed John*s election was central to E.Wake Cook*s criticism of the Royal Academy in his book Retrogres- sion in Art published in 1924 (see below p 216). Yet despite such attacks only seven years elapsed before John was promoted to full Academician. In 1926 J.B.Kanson had ranked John with Sickert as

3 one of the ’two most potent influences in modern British Art *, and when Kanson reviewed John’s exhibition at Tooth’s Gallery in Apollo, April 1929f he was convinced that if John was by then ’ac­ cepted with reluctance1 it was because of his compellingly brill­ iant gifts.- John's 1928 Diploma Work, Portrait of a Young Kan (Plate 82), with its breadth and spontaneity of treatment, is more unconventional than any Diploma portrait at that time. John himself

5

appears to have been amused by his election to the Academy , since 1 Charles Marriott Mr Augustus John as Portrait Painter, The

Studio LXXXIX tlo.325, April 1920 pp 43-'~G- Interestingly Mar­ riott found that the Portrait of a Boy (purchased for- the nat­ ional Gallery of Victoria, Australia, and possibly an earlier: portrait of the same model John used for his Diploma Work, Portrait of a Young Man,(Plate 82) ’reminds us that, with all his modernity, Kr John is a traditional painter. Wothing, to my mind, is 'more significant of his personal security than the candid way in which he will refer to this or that painter of the past.1 (p.48).

2 E.Wake Cook Retrogression in Art and the Suicide of the Royal Academy, London 1924* ’ . . . the incipient revolutionaries of

the Academy have now committed a fatal, a suicidal blunder. They have elected one of the most pronounced anti-academic painters, the much boomed Mr Augustus- John.'(pp 27-8). 3 J.B.Kanson op.cit. p 123.

4 J.B.Kanson .Augustus John R.A., At Tooth’s Gallery, Apollo IX Wo..52 April 1929 pp 201-206.

9 Augustus John Chiaroscuro London 19&2 p 201. (Chiaroscuro was originally published by Jonathon Cape in 1952)» ’In our eyes the E.A. was so bad that no self-respecting artist would be seen dead in it' although 'as a matter of fact the E.A. had recruited itself largely from the W.E.A.C. Steer and Kichol- son alone remained obdurate to the end . . . *

tically out of ’bounds.1 It is also true, however, that the Slade’s famous teaching of draughtsmanship had, by the

1920s, ‘become some-

. 1

what ’academic’ "by reputation •. Only his most virulent detractors attacked John’s ability in drawing.

Algernon Talmage was elected to fill the only Academician vac­ ancy of 1929- By the time he first joined the ranks, of the Academy in

1922

no—one would have classified him as a controversial artist. Talmage was essentially a painter of open-air scenes, whether rustic or urban, and had studied under Herkomer at the Bushey School' be­ fore settling in Cornwall for a period. Under, the influence of the-' S.tanhope Forbes he worked (and taught open-air painting) for a time

2

at St Ives., Xn 1907 he went: to London , where he produced a series of city views which formed the bulk of his work exhibited at the Goupil Galleries in 1909• These Impressionistic canvases marked out Talmage- as a painter of nature and every-day life . During the' wair he was an official war artist of the Canadian scheme-. His

Diploma Work, Horning Glitter. Isle of Wight (Plate

83), despite the

simplicity of the composition, illustrates Talmage’s concern with transient effects of nature.

Sir Gerald Kelly, equipped with an Eton background and a-Cam­ bridge deg-ree, had spent several years- in Paris: where his portraits attracted attention as early as. 1902^. Kelly’s portraiture was- the

1

It is not quite clear the extent to which Tonks’ running of the

Slade was responsible for this impression. It is certajuily true that J.B'.Kanson commented that John’went through the hot­ house training of the Slade School, which forces a student to draw like an old master, a method which might be admirable if that were? the end purpose- of it all. But it leads- no further-, and the painting of a Slade student is usually a coloured drawl­ ing. * J.B.Kanson- op.cit. p 126.

2 As recorded by A.G.Foll'iott Stokes- The Landscape Paintings of Kr Algernon M.Talmage in The Studio XLII Ho.177

5

December- 1907 pp 188-192. A number of works- were exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists in 1907*

3 See A.G.Folliott Stokes Mr Algernon Talmage’s London Pictures, The Studio XLVI Ho.191 February 1909 PP 23-29.

4 See the Art Journal 1909 p 92. Kelly was elected an Associate of the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1909*

1914 ? in which the author was clearly impressed by Kelly’s pictures of Burmese dancers and other national types. It is clear that Kelly was elected Associate in 1922 mainly on the strength of his

portraits. Mary Chamot, in 1937 grouped Kelly with Arthur Cope, J.J.Shannon and others as .

'. . , all interested intfe.direct task of representation un­ troubled a^out any artistic problems or the desire for self- expression .

Tfnen Kelly's 1930 Diploma Work, Jane XXX (Plate 84), is considered there appears to be some truth in Chamot’s statement. Chamot was- also of the opinion that

’Landscape painting of the academic variety has far less raison d ’etre than portraiture • . . ’

although

’the large landscape in oils continues to be produced, and the modern method of painting from drawings or memory in order that

the design may not be hamperedby changing effects is joining hands with the older Victorian practice to oust the Impression­ ist sketch done on the spot * *'

Sydney Lee was naturally cited as one of those producing work of this kind. He had studied at the Manchester School of Art, and at the Atelier Calarossl in Paris. Although primarily a painter he also worked in etching and wood engraving^. Like Ricketts, Talmage and Kelly, Lee was elected Associate in 1922, by which date he al­ ready possessed a reputation for his topographical landscape, ex­ amples of which he had exhibited at the Hew English Art Club since 1°03. Amongst the Dolomites (Plate 23) was purchased by the Chant­ rey Bequest in 1924? and despite the architectural subject of his 1 W.S.Maugham A Student of Character* Gerald Festus Kelly. The

Studio LXII Ho.261 December 1914 PP 163-9* Maugham thought that the qualities of ’emotion and entertainment’ provided the

’essentials of art,’

2 Mary Chamot Modern Painting in England, London 1937 P 87. It should be remembered that Chamot regarded the Royal Academy as an official body whose task was ’ to carry on the social busi­ ness and leave the "pure” artist free to do his work. 5 op.cit.

In document Antenas de telefonía celular "entre el cumplimiento normativo, evaluación ambiental y recepción ciudadana". (página 124-128)