Page 27 - Studio International - December 1967

we were showing. Some workmen were difficult to understand and could not always three carvings and a number of drawings
digging in a hole in the ground near by, tell whether he was friendly or hostile, but was successful in spite of a very mixed
and one of them, approaching Sickert, said: often he was a delightful companion. He press. It was greatly helped by the offer of
'I bet you wouldn't like to own a picture like seemed suspicious and did not like my Jacob Epstein to write a note on his work for
that, sir, would you ?"Oh, I would,' said association with other artists with whom he the catalogue.
Sickert, 'seeing that I painted it."Here, had quarrelled. He used to call at the side The prices at this first exhibition seemed
Bill', the workman said, 'the gentleman says or private entrance and ask for me. His first very moderate and there were quite a lot of
he painted this picture.' Bill put his head enquiry would be: 'Who is in the Galleries? sales. Many of his small carvings were
up from the excavation and said, 'h yes, I None of my "old chums" I Hope.' When I priced as low as 15 gns and the highest-a
don't think!' And Sickert, telling me of this assured him that the coast was clear, he large reclining figure-£200. Drawings were
incident-'It's typical of a cockney-never would venture in, but if there was anything priced 8-10 gns. Amongst the buyers of his
believes anything he's told.' of a crowd, he would persuade me to go out latest work were Epstein himself, E. C.
There were famous passers-by also who for a drink. Gregory (a distinguished collector who was
took notice of the pictures in our window. I In this first exhibition of 1921, beside the also a Director of the Institute of Contem-
used to see A. J. Balfour and very often satirical pictures of Tyros and the drawings porary Arts), Robert Sainsbury (a lively
Bernard Shaw. These two otherwise dis- from nature, there were several portraits young collector with considerable taste),
similar men were both alike in that they such as those of Ezra Pound and Sache- William Rothenstein and Eric Gill.
appeared to be talking to themselves when verell Sitwell. There was also a portrait in Items in the press-cutting album referring
they were looking at something which had oils of Miss Iris Tree lying in a deck chair, to Moore's exhibition make extraordinary
their attention-a habit perhaps of the a formalized and rather cubist work, all reading today. There is no doubt of the sen-
public speaker. acute angles; it emphasized the sharp sation created by this early work, but most
knees, elbows, and features in the same of the notices consisted of childish or vulgar
A letter from Pound manner as the chair in which she was abuse. The Morning Post was the worst
During the Gaudier-Brzeska exhibition a reclining. offender but there was a serious and thought-
collector wished to buy a carving belonging While we were arranging the exhibition, in ful article by Herbert Read in The Listener,
to [Ezra Pound] and I went off to see him in walked Max Beerbohm. Lewis, I knew, was and an approving notice by Francis Watson
Kensington about this proposal. Pound was anxious to keep everyone out during the in the Yorkshire Post and a notable eulogy
a poor man but was very reluctant to part hanging. I said to him, 'Would you like to in the Jewish Chronicle. The Yorkshire
with his carving and paced up and down show Iris Tree's portrait to her uncle?' I papers were particularly vociferous but
his little room many times before he knew Max would dislike the picture but I most of them seemed to be mainly excited
accepted. introduced them. Max looked at it solemnly by the fact that a man born in Castleford
Later, when Pound was in either Paris or for some moments before Wyndham Lewis should so suddenly have acquired such fame
the United States he used to write me asked him what he thought of it. Max said: in London!
sarcastic letters or postcards. Here is one: 'It has its points.' At that time Henry Moore's ideas of money
When Max had one of his exhibitions of were very simple. His great desire was to
57 Rue des Saintes Peres, Paris VI
cartoons and caricatures shortly after wards give up teaching in London and concentrate
Dear Brown,
The slumber of all men passeth understanding. This I showed Lewis round and asked him what on sculpture in the country.
merely to say that Brancusi is the supreme sculptor of he thought of the drawings. He expressed As a result of his first show he wrote to me:
Europe and that there has never been a show of his the greatest admiration of them. 'Beautiful! I am quite pleased with the result considering the
work in London. Difference between him and Gaudier: Such taste I But what a pity he writes-poor bad times. I am going to risk doing only one day's
that between a young genius at the beginning of his stuff, his books.' teaching each week this next year, leaving six for my
run and a master with thirty years more of experience. own work, which prospect makes me very happy.
Brancusi's stuff going steadily to Quinn, Kahn, Moore's first major show
Arensburgh in New York. Henry Moore's first important show of fifty-
It's your business to know these things not mine to
tell you.
Best wishes,
3rd Sept. 1921. Correspondence is to fall over with delight at every paint pot hurled, or
Ezra Pound
a group of organized sycophants of artists, and their
He asked me to call on him one afternoon Appallingly uncritical own liberality. The disadvantage of such a situation is
early in 1920 and rather apologetically that while critics rightly refuse to condemn novelty,
showed me a collection of erotic drawings Dear Sir, they are too afraid to see the banal, or academic.
I will not pretend that what I say now is more than the
by Wyndham Lewis which I have never seen Studio reports on current British and American art
are, beyond question, uniquely thorough in art slightest of personal opinions. What worries me above
since. They were cubist drawings and as
journalism. But have developed too distinct a style—a all is that, despite critical posturing, the old situation
far as I know have never been reproduced. habit, appallingly uncritical, of regarding the current flourishes as seldom before. In the welter of fashion
'Cigar boxes copulating' was the descrip- as of its nature avant garde or new. The British innumerable modish academics are acclaimed with a
tion I heard from an ironic acquaintance exhilaration at having escaped the old stigmas of frantic seriousness that cheapens the assessment,
who had apparently seen them too. They academicism and playing second or even third however it be equally vociferous, of really important
were of course then impossible to exhibit. fiddle to Europe and exultation at being more swing- young artists. I do not know whether Caulfield's 'cool
Before I left him Ezra Pound gave me a book ing or zany than almost any one else, are strong updating' of Delacroix's Greece expiring . . . was
of 'facsimile' drawings by Lewis inspired by forces in your writing. Sometimes there is a more done to lament the coup, or if it was rendered fortui-
circumspect feeling that, in certain respects, per- tously appropriate by events; but I feel that it helps to
Timon of Athens. 'Leave it about on a table haps, we have too long been hanging on Dada's boot- confirm a suspicion that his work is deeply and
and then on another table and you will get straps; but why worry, Duchamp has hangers-on the unadventurously traditional. Like Walls and Sutton, he
to like it,' he said. (I still have Timon of world over. combines the moderate mastery of drawing in the
Athens.) Pound remained a strong admirer This is insufficiently critical; an attitude born of the nice sense with an addiction to the fag ends of the
of Lewis, and in later years, I did my best to dissidence of Whistler and Ruskin, of the discomfort- Fauvist movement. Kidner and other hard edgers,
make a success of Lewis's work; our first ing of conservative criticism. The effect is that art Tilson on your October cover, all stir memories of
one-man show was held in April 1921.... writers have become (at least at their more journal- some movement or another; and not of a movement
At times, I confess, I found him [Lewis] istic) a stall of voluntary aunt sallies whose function developed, but worked to an academic death. Prizes
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