Contemporary British prints and drawings selected from the Wakefield Collection of the British Council

FOREWORD T H E late Lord Wakefield, shortly before his death, presented to the British Council, through the late Sir Lionel Faudel-Philips, first Chairman o f the Fine Arts Committee, the sum o f /3,000. This generous gift was intended to be used for the purchase of contemporary British water- colours, drawings and prints to form a permanent collection for circulation in foreign countries and throughout the British Dominions and Colonies. In pursuit o f this purpose Mr. Campbell Dodgson, formerly keeper o f Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, has for the last nine years visited exhibitors, dealers and studios in a con- stant search for new works. His great enthusiasm and his unrivalled experience were placed unreservedly at the service o f the Committee and the result is probably as representative a collection o f British work in the fields o f watercolour painting and the graphic arts generally as it would be possible to get together. WA T E R C O L O U R S A N D DRAWINGS The task was, for obvious reasons, more difficult in the case o f watercolours than o f prints. The more famous an artist is, the more eagerly is his work acquired not only by private collectors but by public galleries; and, as watercolours are unique objects, every work purchased narrows the field o f choice to later collectors. It is no easy task to get together a collection, in modern times, which shall represent every watercolourist and draughtsman of importance and represent them by something which is on a level with their best work. Whether this has been accomplished or not in the present instance, it is an ideal which has never been lost sight o f for a moment. For a collection o f this kind is an ambassador, an accredited representative o f England, and it is all important that nothing should be included unless it is worthy o f the excellent work which has been done by British artists during the past generation. The watercolours will probably make the first claim on the visitor's attention. From the works o f such veterans as Philip Wilson Steer, and such 'old masters' as H. B. Brabazon to the works of such comparatively young artists as Robin Darwin or Raymond T. Cowern, the exhibition covers an artistic activity o f the best part o f a century, although in selecting the older artists choice has been restricted to those in whose work was to be seen the germ and inspiration of the later schools. The drawings cover, if not in time at least in manner, an even wider field. There are drawings for sculpture or as studies for painting; there are drawings which have been made for their own sake and exist in their own right. Walter Richard Sickert, Sir Muirhead Bone and Augustus John are the veterans in this part o f the exhibition. O f course a great many more artists o f dis- tinction were working in Great Britain during the period in question than it has been at all possible to represent in the present collection. It is hoped none the less that the drawings selected will give some idea o f the great variety o f technique and purpose and the high level of quality o f British draughtsmanship in modem times.