British Academy

Normally the opening of London's Royal Academy show in venerable Burlington House is the opening gun of London's social season, one of the great events of the year. But not in Coronation Year. The 169th Royal Academy exhibition has been officially open for a month, yet not until last week did attendance figures begin to approach normal. Having shaken the Coronation confetti out of their hair, the public trooped in to see what, after sitting for .weeks in solemn judgment, the Academy's hanging committee had chosen.

On view were 1,500 works by 1,000 British artists. As a Coronation gesture the Central Hall was given over to official portraits of British kings from the Academy's first Royal patron George III by Sir Joshua Reynolds to George VI, with the screamingly noticeable exception of Edward VIII. The official portrait of George VI was by Simon Elwes, painted in the gaudy full-dress uniform of the 11th Hussars, called "Cherry Pickers" for their tight crimson breeches.

For once there was no Problem Picture, those elaborate, generally sentimental illustrations for which the R. A. has been famed for generations. Nearest approach was a painting by Irish John Keating en titled Sacred and Profane Love. It showed a harassed mother wiping the nose of a snotty child while nearby her harassed husband holds the pram and gazes long ingly at a cinema poster of an inflamed kiss.

In no other country do portraitists flour ish as in England. This has been true ever since the German Holbein and later the Flemish Van Dyke came to make their everlasting fame & fortune at the British court. Richly represented was the capable if uninspired work of British official portraitists. Among the best was Gerald F. Kelly's picture of the late famed Provost of Eton and writer of immortal ghost stories, Montague Rhodes ("Monty") James.

Cinemactresses outshone peeresses among the sitters. Outstanding was a tight, minutely painted portrait of Merle Oberon by famed Engraver Gerald Brockhurst for which Miss Oberon paid -L-2,000 (see cut). More pleasing to the British public was toothsome Jessie Matthews in oils by Thomas Cantrell Dugdale (see cut). Also in evidence was Greta Garbo as Anna Karenina.

Not only the great are painted by Britain's adept portraitists. Genteel humor has never been despised by the Royal Academy. Year ago Caricaturist George Belcher, who stalks about Chelsea in a large black hat and satin stock and who prefers char ladies and costermongers for models, made headlines at the Academy with a portrait of a fat man playing a cornet. Quick to repeat a good thing, he sent two similar portraits to this year's Burlington House. Best was Brother Fetch, a London commissionaire in full regalia of the Order of Buffaloes, elegantly curling his buffalo horn mustachios and elegantly grasping a white kid glove and a pint of bitters in his right hand (see cut).

Next to formal portraits, Britons love sporting pictures best. Prolific Alfred J. Munnings, whom even the most hothouse esthetes admit to be a great artist, shrewdly combined both with a picture of sanctified George V riding in plus fours and gaiters on his favorite fat little pony Jock at Sandringham (see cut). Worried questions about Jock were among the last words King George ever spoke. It was Jock, with stirrups reversed, who followed his master's coffin from Sandringham House to the railway station. Sure to become one of the most popular of all Artist Munnings' color plates, the portrait of George & Jock was not Artist Munnings' only contribution to the Academy. There was one of his usual, impeccable race horse scenes, and almost identical to George & Jock in composition was a study called The Polish Rider, showing a longhaired man in a knitted cap & muffler walking a chunky horse over snowy fields.

Another Academy specialty, the large historical canvas, has lived on in England while similar work in France, Austria and Germany has long gathered dust on museum and palace walls. Most popular of this type was The Founding of Australia by Algernon Talmadge (see cut). It shows Australia Explorer Capt. Arthur Phillip and his officers, spick & span in white breeches and cocked hats, drinking a toast to the Union Jack under the eucalyptus trees at Sydney Cove. Only different in theme was a painstakingly accurate view of one of Britain's great football crowds, Chelsea v. Arsenal at Stamford Bridge by Charles Cundall (see cut).

Nudes have never been rejected by the Royal Academy, but they have always had to be genteel nudes. Ablest figure in the Academy was Model Resting by David Jagger (see cut). Round this a small storm centred, not because the well-painted figure was nude, but because her toenails were polished crimson, a Continental touch that many critics felt to be un-British.

If attendance at the Royal Academy was disappointing, sales were not. Burlington House announced last week that sales during the first two weeks of the show were up $5,000 over the same period in 1936. Even the venerable president of the Academy, Sir William Llewellyn, G.C.V.O., got in the money by selling a cautious landscape.

First sale on opening day was made by Dame Laura Knight, first woman ever to be on the Academy's selection committee, a famed painter of circus scenes. Dominating most of one wall in a main gallery was her massive canvas called London Palladium showing an unprepossessing young woman in evening dress watching the Crazy Gang, well known London vaudeville team, from a stage box. Manager Gerald Black of the Palladium snapped it up for $6,000 to embellish his lobby.

Not represented at all in the 1937 Academy is Britain's greatest R. A., bearded, talented Augustus John. A steady contributor and a potent moneymaker for many years, Artist John has been too sick the past year to do any painting at all. In his honor Sculptor Barney Scale submitted a portrait bust whose bearded dignity was little spoiled by the fact that a prankster's lighted cigaret left in the mouth burned a spot that made Artist John look as though he were suffering from a virulent cold sore.

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