THE PLOWMAN ETCHINGS

Last spring Mr. George T. Plowman, the etcher, produced a series of four etchings of Dartmouth College which were offered in limited edition to advance subscribers. The edition, now entirely exhausted, has proved so satisfactory that Mr. Plowman has recently undertaken a second series of four which he expects to complete during late fall or early winter.

All of these pictures are the outgrowth of careful studies made on the spot. Mr. Plowman's first visit to Hanover, made under auspices of the Arts, for the purpose of delivering a lecture on the technical processes of etching was shortly followed by a brief pilgrimage devoted to making sketches for the first set of pictures. A third visit, which occurred during the summer just past, was of longer duration and carried him somewhat afield into the haunts of the Outing Club, so that he was enabled to view Dartmouth from valley and from hilltop, and, by his longer sojourn, to gain an increasing appreciation of the flavor of the place.

It seems, therefore, almost unfortunate that his next series must be limited to a set of four plates. A privileged view of the sketches which he made during his stay reveals a number of quite fascinating pictures drawn not only from the midst of the College but from its rustic environs. Several of these depict cabins of the Outing Club set amid trees whose bulk and bend of tall trunks and whose pattern of branch and leafage Mr. Plowman renders—whether with pencil or burinkeenly and with deft exactitude. There is, too, a drawing of the old Ledyard Bridge, so extraordinarily fine in its linear quality—as to both pattern and tex-ture—that it quite cries out for eventual development in dry-point. And, again, there is material for a bit of intimate perspective—of illuminated distance showing between foreground architectural masses in a view of Massachusetts Hall as seen from the campus.

Just which ones among these and other treasures Mr. Plowman will choose for his limited series momentarily escapes the record. But there is to be another picture of Darthmouth Hall taken from the southwest in summer time, with trees in leaf, and there is to be a picture of the east side of the campus, looking close down the line from Parkhurst Hall—a brilliant study in perspective, with a satisfactory conclusion in the great porch of College Hall—usually appreciated below its just desserts. Tuck Drive has likewise claimed the artist's attention where its wide sweep is curbed by a stone parapet marked with the shadows of pines.

Whether because done when the year was mellowing into autumnal peacefulness, or because wrought with surer understanding of his subject and hence with greater joy in it, these drawings for the second series promise a finer outcome than that achieved by the first, which are the less benign for their very truthfulness to the chill waiting for a belated spring.

Most of us know so little of our American etchers that a word concerning Mr. Plowman will not be out of place. He is an artist of sound training, ripe experience, and just sensibility. He graduated

as Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Minnesota in 1892. Subsequently he studied in London and Paris. His works have been exhibited at the displays of the Royal Academy, the Salon, and of the leading American art associations. Etchings by him are to be found in a large proportion of public and private collections at home and abroad. Dartmouth is fortunate in finding its friendly interpreter in one who adds understanding to interest.

ASCTJTNEY FROM HANOVER Dry-point 9 3-4 inches by 6 inches(Edition limited to thirty copies)

DARTMOUTH HALL Etching 7 3-8 inches by 5 3-8 inches(Edition limited to forty prints)