18 DECEMBER 1926, Page 13

Art Exhibitions

[TILE MULTI-NATIONAL EXHIBITION AT THE CHENIL GALLERIES, CHELSEA.]

THESE excellent Galleries in the King's Road hold an enter- taining and enjoyable collection of work by artists of six nationalities. It invites generalizations, but it would be rash to put them forward seriously without further evidence ; everyone could supply the names of absent artists whom it would be necessary to consider in estimating their countries' production. Cross influences are very complicated ; the hot violence of colour and light in Cuno Amiet's work might as easily be Mexican as Swiss, and a quietly well painted still-life group, by the Mexican, Benjamin Coria, would pass as Swiss, but it would be absurd to conclude that there is a rapprochement between Swiss and Mexican artists. Likenesses are more evident than differences here, owing chiefly to the, influence of the ".School of Paris " ; nor, as Mr. Clive Bell remarks, is this to be deplored. Paintings by Matisse, Braque, Roualt, Favory and Utrillo among others represent Paris ; their qualities need not be insisted on. A distinguished portrait by Karl Hofer, and drawings by the sculptor Kolbe, in the German section ; paintings by C. Humbert and M. Savreux among the Swiss, and Walt Kuhn, R. Davey, Waldo Pierce, Maurice Sterne, and Arthur Davies among the American exhibitors may. be noted. The English are naturally most fully represented, and by good examples. Indeed, the pictures should be savoured first for their own qualities, and then compared. internationally. for one's own curiosity.

HUBERT WELLINGTON.