FROM the Shell and other advertisement.drawings, book-decorations and illustrations, murals,
wallpapers and watercolours (among the finest being those, executed as a war artist), Bawden's work has become known to a wide and varied public during the twenty-odd years of his working life. This book, in the series " English Masters of Black-and-White," contains a text unusually interesting for an art-book, and an excellent selection of reproductions, and also pro- vides an astringent comment on the work of the new generation of black-and-white artists which has appeared in the Fast ten years. It is in his controlled use of pen and ink with affinities to traditional methods that Bawden excels ; a drawing is not.an illustration until it is printed alongside type, and, today, the uneasy wedlock of many illustrations and their text derives from this fact being lost to sight. Bawden studied under Edward Johnston and Paul Nash, which partly accounts for his feeling for the printed page, and he has always worked, by preference, not only as an artist but also as a designer. His work is rich in a personal and sometimes caustic sense of humour, but it rests on a fine imagination and an extra- vagance which sometimes flowers into a macabre sort of poetry. Bawden's work speaks for itself—and in no uncertain voice—and Mr. Harling, wisely, is content simply to outline its general tenor ; it is the account he gives of Bawden's character, background, career and working methods, wherever possible quoting the artist, that makes his well-written introduction so lively and informative.
Postage on this issue: Inland and Overseas ltd.; Canada (Canadian Magazine Post) Id
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