Frank Reynolds, R.I. by A.E. Johnson
page 12 of 30 (40%)
page 12 of 30 (40%)
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[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 |
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