Art: Hand-Picked Bones

In the portfolio of any tycoon who collects etchings will almost certainly be found plates by one or more of the great Scottish trio who are currently the highest priced print-makers in the world: Muirhead Bone, David Young Cameron, James McBey. In Manhattan last week the swank art firm of Arthur H. Harlow & Co. celebrated its 25th anniversary with a hand-picked show of dry points and water colors by round-faced, affable Muirhead Bone, 60. It was no place for the impecunious. The prints ranged from $72 to $1,500, the water colors from $85 to more than $350 apiece.

Coming from a family that has long had the sea in its blood (his brother is Novelist Captain David Bone) Muirhead Bone started life as a bank clerk in Glasgow. Drawing, and particularly etching, always interested him. Working alone and teaching himself, he etched two plates, took them down to London to sell. Instantly Dealers Colnogni & Co. recognized the effectiveness of his draughtsmanship, his forceful use of strong black shadows, bargained for all the etchings Bone could make. Muirhead Bone quit the bank, has never since failed to prosper.

One of the British Government’s official artists during the War, he made countless drawings both with the B. E. F. in France and with the Grand Fleet in the North Sea. Widely traveled, he has paid for most of his vacations with etchings, some of which are now worth over $1,000 apiece, of the cities he has seen. Yet for all his fame he is not above turning an honest Scottish penny in commercial magazine illustration. Pride of the Illustrated London News last June was Muirhead Bone’s four-hour pen & ink sketch of the Queen Mary leaving Southampton on her maiden voyage. Pride of Muirhead Bone are mural-panels by his son Stephen and daughter-in-law Mary, in the Queen Mary’s library.

For nine years Muirhead Bone and his wife Gertrude worked on a travel book entitled Old Spain for Macmillan & Co. It appeared month ago in two volumes, but no reviewer received a copy. One of the most expensive sets ever published, it is limited to 250 copies, priced at $550 apiece. For their money each subscriber receives two new Muirhead Bone dry points free.