Frank Reynolds, R.I. | Page 4

was neither crushed nor cramped. On the
contrary, it was given full play, and that the work of Frank Reynolds is
invested with so definite a quality of personality is due in no small
degree to the special circumstances of his youthful training.
Heatherley's, in Newman Street, London, was his only school. Here, for
some time after his final abandonment of commerce for art as the
serious business of his life, Reynolds was a close and persistent student.
That conscientious care which presents itself to those who are
cognisant of his method of work (and, indeed, to any intelligent critic
of his finished drawings) as one of his most salient characteristics was a
feature of his days of apprenticeship at Heatherley's. Delight at
emancipation from uncongenial occupation was balanced by a sober
ambition and a steady purpose. He lived laborious days, laying to heart
the lessons of his craft, but he laboured always con amore.
[Illustration: BETHNAL GREEN. From "Sunday Clothes"]
In his student days at Heatherley's Frank Reynolds received much
valuable help from Professor John Crompton. On the vital importance
of drawing, the latter was especially insistent: this was the dominant
note of his teaching, markedly made manifest in the work of his pupil.
In the matter of draughtsmanship, few men have so sure a hand, an
instinct so unerring.
[Illustration]
Leaving Heatherley's, Frank Reynolds set out, armed with a sharp
pencil, and a yet sharper sense of humour, to make a living out of
black-and-white illustration. His work quickly obtained recognition,
and his drawings were soon appearing with regularity in the illustrated
press. It would have been strange if Pick-Me-Up, then in its sunniest

and most audacious days, had not opened its arms to so keen an
observer of life's little comedies, and Frank Reynolds speedily became
one of that clever band which, including at different times such artists
in jest as Raven Hill, S. H. Sime, Dudley Hardy, J. W. T. Manuel,
Eckhardt, and others, succeeded in making, for a brief but brilliant
period, the satirical little sheet in the blue wrapper the most talked of
periodical, perhaps, of its day. One recalls with relish many of the
quaint conceits that were illustrated in its pages by Reynolds'
mirth-provoking line, and thinks, with regrets for opportunities lost,
how admirable a successor he would have been to Raven Hill and "the
man Sime" as collaborator with Arnold Goldsworthy in those shrewdly
flippant theatrical critiques which the latter contributed over the
familiar signature of "Jingle."
[Illustration: THE REAL ARTIST. From "Paris and Some Parisians"]
It is by his work for the Sketch, however, that Frank Reynolds is best
known to the public. Credit is due to that enterprising journal not only
for the discrimination which has caused prominence to be given to his
drawings in its pages, but for the nice appreciation of the artist's
peculiar vein of humour which has given him a free hand to produce
those exquisitely subtle studies of character which are his especial
province. As examples of what a humorous drawing should be they are
well-nigh perfect. To Reynolds it is not enough merely to depict a
laughable situation or superficially comic types. The humour of his
drawings is inherent, not extraneous; his pictorial jests are
self-contained, so to speak, and the printed legend beneath them is
incidental only. Frank Reynolds produces a comedy where other men
succeed only in perpetrating a farce.
[Illustration: "KOSHY"]
[Illustration: NOTE FROM A PARIS SKETCH-BOOK]
[Illustration: FIRST SKETCH FOR "THE SUBURBANITE"]
[Illustration: THE SUBURBANITE. A Sunday Morning Study. From
"Social Pests"]

[Illustration: A GOOD STUDY. From "Paris and Some Parisians"]

FRANK REYNOLDS. III.
How does one portray a type? What are the rules that govern the
selection of those separate distinctive features which are to form, when
blended together, one harmoniously characteristic whole? Frank
Reynolds, surely, of all people should be able to answer. But if the
question be asked him, he will reply that he does not know. The
process is unconscious, or almost so. The portrait "comes" of its own
accord. Reflection shows that this must be so. If the artist were to try
deliberately to copy this or that feature from concrete personalities, the
result would fail to carry conviction. The portrait of a type must be the
presentment of an abstract personality--a print, as it were, from a
composite negative comprising the likenesses of many individuals, so
welded together as to reproduce only that which is common to all: a
collective portrait which is like all but resembles none.
[Illustration: There's no 'olding 'im now, sir, since 'e's gone into
knickers--e's' that pomptious! From "Punch"]
It is related of Charles Dickens that the creation of many of his famous
characters was inspired by a chance remark overheard in the street. A
single telling sentence, uttering