The Camden Town Group in Context

 There is a good deal of amusement as well as interest to be derived from the second exhibition of the Camden Town group, at the Carfax Gallery (24, Bury-street). Mr Wyndham Lewis attempts to outvie the wildest frolics of the Post-Impressionists in three canvases which are ludicrous and inane. (If the printer makes an error with the latter adjective, few will blame him.) I hardly know whether I should enjoy most of the comments of a maiden aunt from the country or of certain Royal Academicians upon this last outburst of eccentricity. Mr J.D. Innes, in a series of Welsh landscapes, is mild in comparison. He is merely an imitator of Mr John, and his “Mountain Stream,” with its impossibly elongated figure, measuring about fourteen heads to the body, makes an attractive caricature of one of the exhibits at the Goupil Salon. As a group, the exhibitors find little pleasure in the richness of paint as a material, and work either with a dry, crumbling texture or in a loose mosaic of touches. Mr H. Gilman shows perhaps more sympathy with colour than some of his companions, but his nude studies are not particularly pleasant. Mr Walter Sickert is at his best in “Mother and Daughter,” and Mr Spencer Gore continues his expressive renderings of theatre interiors with “The Mad Pierrot Ballet” and “The Promenade.” One of the most striking and satisfying exhibits is a “Portrait” by Mr Henry Lamb, and normal methods are used with success by Mr M. C. Drummond in his “Portrait of a Lady” and Mr J. Doman Turner in his water-colour of “Sheerness.” It is a relief also to come upon three exhibits by Mr Walter Bayes, distinguished in their fine sense of design and harmonious colour. “The Bridge” and “The Glass Door” are perhaps the best, but all have a refinement of thought and execution which is lacking in many of their neighbours.