Very unlike Mr. Solon's poster are the _affiches_ of Mr. Heywood Sumner; those which I reproduce here seem to me to be very characteristic of his graceful gift of design. Mr. Morrow is already an established favourite on the hoardings of London, and justly so in that his performances are of exceptional merit. His "Illustrated Bits" [Illustration: 0302] is a radiant affair, and his "New Woman" makes quite a pretty picture. His works should certainly be collected. Of Mr. R. Anning Bell it is not too much to say that for versatility only Mr. Walter Crane among English artists can be said to rival him, and, what is far more important, his success in a medley of mediums is not to be gainsaid. His poster for the Liverpool School of Art, over which he presides, is a magnificent piece of decoration, and nothing so fine, in its way, has ever been, seen on English hoardings. It takes one up to the Elgin marbles; it is an oasis of the classical in a desert of the new. I can only mention the following native artists, not previously considered, who have produced pictorial posters of interest: Mr. F. Barnard ("Everybody should read in the European School"), Mr. F. Simpson ("Land of the Midnight Sun," "To Norway Fjords"), Mr. Robert Fowler, R.I., whose poster for the Walker Art Gallery is here illustrated, Mr. Sidney Haward (p. 279), Mr. Skipworth ("An Artist's Model"), Mr. Skinner ("Pall Mall Magazine"), Mr. Starr Wood and Mr. A. G. Draper. I have already remarked that the poster movement in this country amounts to a positive revolution. No young artist is satisfied unless he has a hand in the decoration of the hoardings; the gold frame is for the time forgotten, and all have their eyes on the lithographer's stone. France has undoubtedly had a long start of us, but if she is to retain her supremacy she must look to her laurels. Our young men are beating at her doors, though beating only in a spirit of friendly rivalry. Happily, between England and France there is, at this moment, only one war-the war of the pictorial poster. [Illustration: 0304] [Illustration: 0306] CHAPTER IX.--IN AMERICA |In the sweet uses of advertisement the American is surely an expert, and it would have been curious indeed, if he had overlooked so obvious and so effective a method of advertising as the pictorial poster. Finding, in the notorious phrase of Mr. Whistler, that "Art was on the town," the American advertiser was one of the most eager of those passing gallants who chucked her under the chin. Who it was originated the artistic poster movement in the States, it were hard to say with certainty: it may have been Mr. Matt. Morgan. Among recent American poster producers, three, however, are most conspicuous, Mr. Edward Penfield, Mr. Louis J. Rhead, and Mr. Will. H. Bradley. It is probable that the first-named was the innovator: at least, one would be tempted to judge so from the quantity of his designs.