WOMEN AS SCULPTORS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 301, 14 September 1908, Page 5

WOMEN AS SCULPTORS.

Sculpture is one of the most hopeful art caTeors • for women, -says , a writer in the "Queen." ;'Every year's- -Academy. shows , this,' although the oouncil has not yet elected a gre'at sculptor .of the sex Fu.A. There is a round: dozen' of regular women exhibitors in the ' plastic ; arts, • and. a.t' South' . Kensington' Professor' Lanteri has a class of"eirl students numbering,. as' a- • rule, from twenty to twenty-five. None of these become amateurs merely. If they do not afterwards exhibit, they work or teach. In a recent chat with Professor Lanteri, I 1 asked him- if ho found that women taking up the plastic arts afo capable-of meeting men on e-qujl terms. ■ "Exci-pt in work that . makes hea\jy physical demands, yes," ho .said. "It *t3 remarkable; in the first year - j hero thoy make more progress than tho male , -students.. Artistically speaking,.-their work when they leave, too, is quite as'strong, as ' tho men's is; the men havo to catch' up, • ••.glow, and sure. The alto-relief by Miss "Winser," so icljju'actei'istic and personal; was one of' -the lbest : things/jn .last year's Academy exhibition. . Indeed,' in tho .School of Design, beforo they come to me;;.thcir ;tfork is often better than the i men's.; .Only;'; after- they ~ leave—-tfell, 1 think , they', sometimes want , sonVeonel behind them, to push them. They •seem to'need encouragement moro than, men - 'do.- i . 'I -"However," said tho' genial Professor, ' who is Deldu's most distinguished successor, "tho fashion of portrait statuettes and busts is certainly coming in, and. in making, theso they can always hold their own. .One of'our . ex-pupila is Miss Una Taylor—stillill her teens, I'/think—who'did tho bust of tho infant Princess of Spain. Of course, wo cannot, claim all the, credit; Miss Taylor is extremely J. artistic,'and her studies began at six years old; liurne Jones was her people's friend, and'she camo hero for her five years' course at thirteen.- Thero is Mrs. Wade, too, whose beautiful silver statuette of a winged Victory, given to Wellington College ' by one of the masters as a houso trophy, was presented by tho King. And of busts and statuettes the Academy has also shown examples. The modelling school ,of tho Royal College of Art has a very pleasant atmosphere, in lyhich the interests of discipline do not call for severities. That is the triumph of sympathetic teaching." Oa three days of every week thero is modelling from tho life; on two days, designing in "composition." Twice, a week there is oarring in marblo; twico a _ week repousse work, chasing and enamelling; twico a week practical pottery lectures aro given on tho arrangement of drapery.