12 hoon at 14 Buckyhoun 8t. Shand 9:2:6: Finished! and now, my Dear Chief,

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-The all-kuving

You think of the latest master pieces + are master pieres, though Save The Family - has seen them get? And what do you _ the all-" one think of their prospects fin The EXPOSITION PENNELL in Felmay mext? and there are about as many onto follow; if I don't die printing or biting. Who is just nouit, unch

at the Briton.

2

- or rage at
on my inens. Yous

Reproduction, in reduced size, of a letter from Joseph Pennell, who writes announcing the fact that he has finished the printing of his etchings of London. Through the window is seen a view of London, with St. Paul's in the distance. It will be seen by this sketch that the printing-press, as well as the artist himself, are dreadfully fatigued. Wet proofs of the etchings are spread all over the floor.

as Hamlet says, and actually fight against and weaken the text which they attempt to elucidate and emphasize.

Next after the illustrator it is probably the really able original etcher to whom fame comes quickly; and after him, in a descending scale, come the portrait-painter, then the painter of other subjects, and, last of all in order of quick promotion, the scupltor. His statue or group cannot easily be multiplied, is difficult to move from place to place, and for these reasons must long remain comparatively unknown, while, on the contrary, the picture of the illustrator is examined by thousands of people in thousands of different places from the very day of its birth.

Of the many famous painters who thus won early recognition by means of etching or illustrating, or through both, I may mention Whistler, Sir John Everett Millais (late President of the Royal Academy, London), the Frenchmen Meissonier and Charles Jacque, and one of our famous Philadelphians, Edwin A. Abbey, R. A. In company with these eminent names we may place the name of Mr. Pennell. If, unlike the others, he is not yet famous as a painter, it is solely because the publishers and the public have not hitherto allowed him the time necessary for the making of oil paintings, water colors, and pastels; but he has produced a few beautiful pictures in these mediums, although he has not yet exhibited them.

Joseph Pennell-like Whistler, Abbey, and

other famous artists of American birth-has won name and fame in Europe before American recognition came to him. He comes of good old Quaker stock, and was born at Philadelphia on the fourth of July, 1860. He is the son of the late Larkin Pennell, who was an eminent member of the Society of Friends, and whose first American ancestor came to our shores in company with William Penn when the latter made his second voyage from England to the province of Pennsylvania.

I think that pictorial art-like music, rich dress, and certain other artistic but worldly vanities was disallowed by the sternly conscientious first followers of George Fox; but, be that as it may, Joseph Pennell from his early boyhood was resolved to become an artist, and that indomitable "backbone" which distinguishes him as a man must have made difficult things easy for him as a boy.

His training began at the Philadelphia Industrial Art School, and was continued and completed at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. This was during the years when that admirable man, the late James L. Claghorn, was its President. Mr. Claghorn belonged to the very best type of American citizenship; one of those essentially "big" and forceful men - president of this, chairman of that, trustee of the other public institution, but withal thoroughly democratic and quite devoid of all pretense or selfimportance. This was the man who first made me acquainted with the work of Joseph Pennell,

ROUEN CATHEDRAL (LITHOGRAPH) ROUEN (LITHOGRAPH) Size of the original print, 20 by 14 inches. Size of the original print, 194 by 13 inches. From the original lithographs by Joseph Pennell. Whistler, who rarely praised the work of his fellow-artists, wrote of Mr. Pennell's lithographs, when they were shown at The Gallery of The Fine Art Society, London: "There is a crispness in their execution and a lightness and gaiety in their arrangement as pictures, that belong to the artist alone.'