Model As Artist

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 25, 29 July 1933, Page 19

Model As Artist

Miss Isobel Nicholas, who recently has been much before the public eye as the model of two magnificent portrait busts by Mr. Epstein, held recently at the Valenza Gallery, Conduit Street, W.,. her first exhibition of drawings, some of which are done in black and white, others enlivened with watercolour (states a correspondent).

Miss Nicholas finds her models among the inmates of the Zoo, who seem to become quito tame in her presence, and enjoy "keeping the pose" while she makes perspicacious notes of their attitudes and expressions.

The characteristic postures and forms of the various animals are fixed with a few swift pencil lines, the colouring being indicatad by summary but pertinent, broad strokes of the brush.

The drawings are full of vitality, particularly successful in that respect being the different views of the resting tigers and the expressive and graceful studies of the Bushbucks.

Miss Nicholas's work does not only show consummate craftsinanly knowledge acquired by serious training— she once won a scholarship at the Royal Academy Schools—but also great imaginative, qualities in the treatment of line and colour, as well as a quick and subtle sense of observation.