Mr. R. Bigazzi, the well-known art collector from Florence, gave an exhibition of some of the hundreds of works he has with him, this week in the French Town Hall, and he hag arranged that the proceeds from the entrance fee of 81 which was charged shall be devoted to the funds of the Women's Famine Relief Society, and a percentage of the receipts from the sale of the pictures to the Shanghai War Memorial.
There can be little doubt but that Mr. Bigazzi has brought to Shanghai the most remarkable collection of pictures that has been seen here for many years past. In all there are about 1,000 pictures in the batch ich Mr. Bigazzi is carrying with him, but the French Town Hall does not afford an opportunity of showing more than a_ selection of the whole, and the selection which Mr. Bigazzi has made has provided Shanghai with an opportunity of seeing some of the best works of notable painters of the continental modernist, school.
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Such names as Charles Gir, Lucien Jonas, Chaffanel, Coussens ete. are probably not well known to British readers, but in Europe they are men who are fast making names for themselves. Jonas, for instance, exhibited his first notable picture only 15 years ago, and has now acquired a reputation as a minute observer of humanity.
So much strikes one in viewing the pictures. Mr. Jonas's pictures are wonderful studies of humanity, placed on canvas with an unerring hand and remarkable for their colour and dramatic lighting. For example that of a priest in vestments leading a procession of the faithful whose singing faces, back in the shadow, and eyes uplifted to that light which catches the white of the priest's surplice form a wonderful living background for the centre figure of an imposing picture. There are other such, and some of rheumy old men whose eyes gaze out of the canvas through the mist of years, wonderful drawings of age. There is one picture, truly remarkable. We would not
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.