The Camden Town Group in Context

 The “Camden Town Group” are holding their exhibition at the Carfax Gallery, 24, Bury-street, St. James’s. As a group they take little joy in their medium for its own sake, and work with an unpleasant mottled surface of rather dry paint, with a common liking for undertones of a purplish tinge. Their paint suggests fresco work done under difficulties upon an absorbent surface of plaster rather than upon canvas. They pride themselves, no doubt, upon ignoring mere beauty and painting the actuality of modern life. That is, perhaps, why they are concerned with the stable, the music-hall, the back bedroom; Mr Walter Sickert gives us an unpleasant subject such as “Summer in Naples,” and why Mr S. F. Gore, in painting “Euston from the Nursery,” is more concerned with the bars of the nursery window than the light and life outside. There is vigour of painting, of course, in both these pictures, and praiseworthy vigour in “Reapers, Sweden,” by Mr H. Gilman, and “Quiet with all Road Nuisances,” by Mr R. P. Bevan. Mr Wyndham Lewis continues his little game. It is one played by the Breton children, one party asking another: “Savez-vous planter les choux à la mode de chez nous?” Mr Lewis is not going to be beaten by any cabbage planting in France, and so, like the gentleman in Punch, he has got out his T-square and made a cubist picture. It is called “Danse,” but it might as well have been entitled “Jig Saw” or “The First Five Books of Euclid.” One wonders again what Mr Walter Bayes is doing in this gallery. His colour is much more subtle than that of most of his neighbours, his outlook more refined. “Le Petit Casino,” “Shade,” and “Port” are all charming in colour and decorative effect. Other works that give real pleasure are Mr H. Lamb’s “Study of a Head,” Mr J. B. Manson’s “Little French Harbour,” and three pleasant tinted drawings by Mr J. Doman Turner.