The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1918-12-08
WATER COLOR VIEW
CHARMS. BY QUALITY
Work of Mrs. Sherwood Is Re-
fined With "MOther and
Baby" as Best.
HAsSAM AUTOGRAPHS Up
Pretty Successful Efforts Are
on Exhibition at Keppel
Galleries.
Nv HENRY MCBRIDE.


The water colors OF Rosina Emmett
Sherwood. now on view in the Cos
mopolitan Clubs Gallery, provide
agreeable, IL light. entertainment.
Some of them are so well done that
Immediately the question hobs up
"why were they not shown in the
Water Color Clubs show" or at least
"why do not they have water colors
like these in the official exhibitions?'
For they are clever, in good taste
and quite the sort of things that nice
people like to stick around in odd
corners OF the house; and nice people
II must be confessed, show strange
hesitancy to stick things from the
official water color shows anywhere
How the water color societies live and
pay their rent is always one or my
pet mysteries I often wake up IN
the middle Of the night and worry
about them. But possibly they are
u.
soul who lived and fiourished back in
the DAYS when the annual water color
exhibition was one of the events OF
the season bequeathed them enough
gilt-edged five per cents to live on.
That must be 1t. Still that's no rea-
son why. the moment they found out
they didn't have to earn their livings,
they should all promptly paint water
colors as though in oils. Mrs. Sher-
wood, at least, does not do that
OF her fifty or so examples, two or
three are much above her own level.
Distinctly the most successful Is a
Mother and Baby" lying happily
asleep in a huge four-poster bed.
The textures are luckily arrived at
throughout, and the various woolens
and silks, the still lifes and the we'll
washed baby's skin are equally sue
cessful. Another nice water color is
a portrait Of man sitting in a
library. Altlloubi !" 10 wa
and colored, 1t has something OF the
charm of an amateurs drawing, for
strangely enough, water colors by
amateurs are often more pleasing than
works by pretentious professionals
Who would not prefer Edmond de
Goncourts hating but intensely
meant" portrait OF his brother jules
with his pet cooked aloft upon the
family mantelpiece, TO any academi'
cally correct portrait by any master
that might be mentioned?
The level run of Mrs. Sherwood s
work, already referred to, Is refined
but without much depth. The people
who sat for portraits were all care
fully nurtured, decent people-the
kind we like to call, and possibly are
our best-young girls sitting upor
green garden seats; old ladies If
brand new formal gardens; a youns
woman, distinctly well bred, rakins
hay; a young Scotchman over here
on a mission, sitting in his kilte'
upon some garden rocks for his por'
trait TO be took. What is to be saio
about such people in art. Who car
| feel such themes seriously?
OF course l am not such a Boil
shevik as to suppose that nader
| lacks soul Just because she happens
to wear Redfern frock. or that {
valeted gentleman cannot be spir
| itual. l know by this time that, al
! of us have souls; or at least. If al
of us do not have souls, then no ont
, OF us has.
Why is not then, the art of Mrs
! Sherwood as effective and as esteemed
as that of, let us say, Miss Cassatt
! Why is not the picture of the cir
ON the rocks BY the sea, as strOn:
as the pieces by Zorn which II re
sembles like a faint echo? Mrs. Shcr
wood would seem TO have been a
gifted in the beginning as Mis- Cas-
satt. and evidently she was as wei
schooled Why should she not to,
have developed into a recognizable
and undeniable figure?
| | suspect. and now you'll be sur
! I'm Bolshevik, ! suspect that she fcl
into too soft an environment. ! an
afraid that she has not been sum
GENTLY pushed by circumstance. TIL
charming people whom she has draw
! in an acceptable but lazy name
have not exacted much from her
Charming people soothe but do no
always stimulate.
Miss Cassatt, upon the other hand
had the extraordinary good fOrtun
to work with and to become one witt
the great French impressionists a
the moment when they were battling
for their lives with the ever stup.,
but powerful bourgeois. She share,
the eXaltation of group of brillian
men who dared to look at life from
a new angle. and who possibly locke,
all the more seriously at life the NOR
their motives were questioned an,
attacked. The main thing was tina
they looked on life. Miss Cassat
looked on life. Like Mrs. Sherwood