Frank Rutter (1876 – 1937)
British art art critic, curator and activist.
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That, by the accident of an illegality in the codicil to his will, it should have been possible for Hugh Lane's pet collection to be snaffled by the British Government, is a fitting conclusion to the shabby story of England's appreciation of French impressionist painting.
When I think of the thousands and thousands of pounds which have been spent by the National Art Collections Fund on the purchase of paintings—some of questionable merit and dubious condition—by Old Masters already represented in the National Gallery—it makes me boil with rage to think that in 1905 it would not contribute one halfpenny towards the purchase for the nation of a picture by one of the Great French Masters of the late nineteenth century. It was a short-sighted policy, but the Fund's inertia and snobbish ineptitude are entirely characteristic of the habits of art-officialdom in England.
Where, oh where was Mr. Roger Fry in 1905, and why was his voice not heard in the land? How could he allow anybody to call Cézanne an "amateur" with impunity?
Hullo! What's this? What are these funny brown-and-olive landscapes doing in an impressionist exhibition? Brown! I ask you? Isn't it absurd for a man to go on using brown and call himself an impressionist painter?
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