BATEMANBEARDED INKS DO!

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 714, 13 July 1929, Page 2

BATEMANBEARDED INKS DO!

Famouas Cartoonist and His Work

(WRITTEN for THE SUN by

IAN COSTER.)

glßjjTj TIT in to the spring lanes übSKj of Surrey I went on % pilgrimage to the home jsß® o£ fam ° us h. M- - Bateman, who is famaaaE* 4 ous enough to have given us an adjective, “Batemanesque.” Inside his red brick mansion which overlooks the sweep of Reigate Heath and is opposite a pleasant tavern, “The Black Horse,” I was taken behind the scenes of those tragedies, social, military, clerical and domestic which, following the ideals of Greek sculpture, are frozen chunks of realism —imaginative, of course. Below medium height is Mr. Bateman, with eyes full of enthusiasm and a nose, may I say it, just faintly reminiscent of that of one of his main types. He poured tea with a practised hand, and then took us—Bill, his fox terrier and me—to the studio to see

the latest “Awful Moment” in the making. When one looks at those tremendous, electric-atmosphered scenes, stilled as by frost before an imminent, devastating thaw, one feels that they are spontaneous, inspired of a sudden and dashed off. The Guardsman of deathly pallor who has let his rifle slip on parade, the curate gazing at the wreck of his tea cup; all these creatures clutched by the first realisation of the enormity of their offences, seem to be the inspiration of a moment, lined up and finished in an hour or so. But they are not. On his drawing board was the most modern of the “Moments,” almost ready for the colouring. It was a magnificent thing. I can’t tell you very much about it, for it has yet to be' published. . . . anyhow the set is the interior of a big drapery store. In this high hall are silks and satins of the colours of the sunsets and the seas and great flowing draperies of cloth, a perspective of elegant counters and elegant customers. Do you think that Mr. Bateman just relied

on his memory and reconstructed the interior from his recollections of his last visit to a store to help Mrs. Bateman pick the curtains? Well you are quite wrong. With his sketch book he has been going into Harrods’; one of London's big stores, and surreptitiously or brazenly, pencil ling out his set. One sketch was not sufficient; he has jotted down five or six impressions of perspective, of lighting and of atmosphere. Undoubtedly he spent long in consider ing with his eye and his pencil what liall and what counter would best suit the “Moment”—the haberdashery, or the gentlemen's underwear, the gloves or the night gowns. Back to his studio he has come to consider the sketches and to transfer them to drawing paper. Then there is the final selection and the beginning of the drawing proper. Art ia long, they used to say in the copybooks; well, it evidently doesn't refer only to Academicians. Batemans search for material must lead him to see even more of London than the assiduous American tourist. His sketch books are his reference library. All sorts and sizes they are. filled with types, not only of humanbeings. Here are all sorts of me chanioal devices, records of the artist’s tours of London, the countiesEurope. There are farmers and Pros' sian Guards, back views of gluttons “stodging.” glimpses of street corners shop-windows, drawing rooms, studies of buses, cars, cycles, submarinesguns. . Dentists’ chairs lie has specialised in; there are numerous sketches ot them, complete with all the gadget* of torture. Slot machines (and from these in London one cau buy every thing from rouge and powder P u “‘ and pocket handkerchiefs to cigaretteund stamps) are rampant on sever* 1 pages. Mr. Bateman needs no direv tory to his books; if he wants a hano or a foot, a battleship or a train, #- can turn to the volume and the p*? e Immediately. “I think I have developed a sffw sense,” he confided in me. “I find i“ ■ I can go to the theatre now or ev to the movies and take down an pression in the dark. Light is » longer absolutely necessary for me draw.” He showed me s^ Te theatre sets and sketches of play® 5 all done in semi-darkness. . He is rather easily embarrass®*’ this student of nature and lnec “ a ®!r and hence, possibly, his wide pathy for the unfortunate brea:kef ' social commandments. He *®, work, liveb for it and simply understand the drones. a Income tax was the one subject which he showed a sense of anD r c ance. He was up in arms against overburdened workers supporting “thousands of officials at Whiten** “The Army and the Navy, doesn't mind helping to pay for *- all they give us something to sew ; but all the rest of them _ ; words failed. “Still,” he summea | “these income tax officials P ro I look on it as a sport, making the j for the workers to play and P® y '„ : seek and we don't dare to hide.