ARTIST’S STORIES OF ROYALTY

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 48, 20 November 1926, Page 24

ARTIST’S STORIES OF ROYALTY

QUEEN KEPT WAITING

“New York is the coining art centre of the world. Because of the impoverishment of Europe she is drawing the best artist of the old world. One finds there brilliant exponents of English, Russian, French, Austrian, and Spanish art, and something big and broad is bound to result.” This is the view of Mr. Bryant Baker, a young Englishman who is now regarded as the most famous portrait sculptor in the United States. He is on one of his periodical visits to London.

It was a bust of the late King Edward which brought Mr. Baker bounding into the public eye some years ugo. He was a student then in the Royal Academy School in Burlington Gardens. His aspirations were high, and he had sought, through the late Lord Spencer, then Lord Chamberlain, an opportunity to make a bust of King Edward. Word came that it would be arranged; but the King died. Mr. Baket had collected a number of snapshots of King Edward and had taken every opportunity of seeing him .in public. From these pictures and impressions he fashioned his model and sent it off to the Hull Exhibition.

One day there came a telegram that filled the young student with astonishment and delight. “Queen Alexandra wishes to see you at 2.45 o’clock this afternoon at' Buckingham Palace. Please acknowledge this,” it read, and it was signed by Sir Arthur Davidson.

Bowling over furniture and fellowstudents in his hasty, exit, Mr. Baker hurried home for his top hat and other things desirable for a Royal audience. He was, perhaps, a little deliberate about his dress, and he arrived at the Palace about 15 minutes late.

Queen Alexandra had waited, as even Queens sometimes do, and the equerry hurried the young sculptor into her presence. She told him she had liked his work very, much, and expressed surprise that it had been done without - any sittings She ordered him to do a large model and several small copies for herself, and later chose him to do the London memorial to King Edward. It was some months later that Mr, Baker added to his feat of keeping a Queen waiting fifteen minutes by keeping a train waiting even longer. It was on the occasion of a visit to Sandringham, this time to show Queen Alexandra a small model he had done.

“She was a charming woman,” he savs “and on this day she fell to talking about other sculptors whom she had known, Sir Edgar Boehm in particular I did not notice the time until I saw the equerries pacing the floor rather nervously and glancing from time to time at their watches. “As train time drew near, and Queen Alexandra was still talking, I overheard one of them order that the King’s car be got ready, A little later 1 heard them change the order for the King’s fastest car. Still later I heard the order that the station be

communicated with and the train held back. "Finally the audience ended, and 1 packed my model hurriedly. The car was waiting, and we made a dash at amazing speed. I was frightened for my model, if not for my life. As we got to the station there was the train waiting, and so was a large crowd. I suppose they had expected to see some royal personage step out of the car, and they must have been disgusted when they saw me pop out and nop into the train.”

It was at Queen Alexandra’s commission that Mr. Baker fashioned. a bust of Prince Olaf of Norway. The Prince was only nine then, and was a lively youngster. Indeed, he rocked back and forth in his chair so much that Mr. Baker wonders how he. ever finished the work. But finish it he did, and it is now in the Royal Palace at Oslo.

The bust had an interesting psychological value. Prince Olaf had inherited his mother’s dark eyes and hair, rather than the light Scandinavian colouring, and it was in this piece of sculpture that the King of Norway noticed for the first time his son’s close resemblance to himself. Mr. Baker saw Queen Alexandra on sixteen different occasions, but he never modelled her. He suggested once that he would very much like to do so, but she led him to a bust made by Sir Edgar Boehm in the days of her beautiful youth and intimated that. it. represented her in the way in which she wanted to be remembered by her people. Mr. Baker’s sitters were by no means confined to Rovaltv. He did a bust of Mr. Lloyd George without a single sitting, his only groundwork being fleeting glimpses of the subject in the lobbies of the House of Commons and the corridors of 10, Downing Street. He has also done four remarkable portraits of American Presidents —Theodore Roosevelt, W. H. Taft. Mr.. Coolidge, and Woodrow Wilson. His colossal bust of President Wilson is to be given a place of honour in the new hall of the League of Nations at Geneva. W. H: Taft he sculptured in London, the sitting taking place in the linen room of the American Embassy. Mr. Taft sat each morning from seven to eight, with a dressing-gown thrown over his bulky figure. Once he noticed the small amount of clav which was being used, and expressed doubt that Mr. Baker would have enough to "make him." The sculptor replied that he had three tons of it available, whereupon Mr. Taft observed smilingly, “That will just about be enough.” Another remarkable sculpture by Mr. Baker is a portrait of Sir Auckland Geddes, who insisted upon being modelled without his glasses. He would also have no collar or tie showing around his neck.

When the sittings were over Sir Auckland told Mr. Baker that when he sent the bust he had better mark it “Eggs.” “Why eggs?” ash.ed Mifc Baker. “Because I’ve been sitting on it so long,” was the quick retort.