Portraiture by Command

On the walls of the highly decorated Wildenstein Galleries in Manhattan last week hung a collection of 48 lush canvases, opulently framed, softly lit, richly varnished. Ten of them were mural studies of the Prophets of Israel. The rest were the latest crop of portraits of bigwigs by Britain's Frank O. Salisbury, member of the Worshipful Company of Glaziers and favorite portraitist of George V.

Probably no living artist has painted quite so many kings, queens, tycoons and great ladies as small, bald, dynamic Philip de Laszlo. Yet for 20 years Glazier Salisbury has run him a close second on the strength of a pair of bristling eyebrows, an impressive forehead, a slick, completely artificial technique and a series of truly magnificent lavender cravats.

The Wildenstein show of portraiture by command was Mr. Salisbury's first exhibit in the U. S. in six years. On view were Cardinal Hayes in his princely robes; J. Pierpont Morgan looking royally severe; the late Calvin Coolidge (lent by the Antiquarian Society of America), the late George Fisher Baker Sr. (lent by U. S. Steel Corp.), Myron Charles Taylor, LL. D. (also lent by U. S. Steel Corp.), Nicholas Murray Butler, D. C. L., LL. D. (lent by the Archaeological Biographical Society of New York), Walter Sherman Gifford (lent by American Telephone & Telegraph Co.), Eugene Grace (lent by Bethlehem Steel Corp.), Dr. Dean Sage (lent by the Presbyterian Hospital). Other Salisbury sitters: Benito Mussolini, William Thompson Dewart (New York

Sun), Herbert Lee Pratt (Standard Oil), Edward Eugene Loomis, LL. D. (Lehigh Valley Railroad), Edward Stephen Harkness, Mrs. Frank O. Salisbury.

A sickly child, Frank Salisbury was tutored privately, began to draw seriously when he was about 15, in the studio of his elder brother, a designer of stained glass windows. He won scholarships at the Royal Academy art schools, traveled in Italy, Germany and France. At the age of 23 he returned to London, set up his easel as a portrait painter.

His first success was a portrait of a Miss Alice Maude Greenwood which was accepted for the Royal Academy of 1899. The picture was sold and two years later Frank Salisbury married Miss Greenwood. The portrait of the future Mrs. Salisbury won him a commission to do a portrait of Sir Joseph Gilbert which in turn brought him a commission from Sir Charles Lawes-Writtewronge. After that Frank Salisbury was made. Since then he has propped up his easel before so many of the world's potentates, that it is difficult to understand why he has never been knighted or admitted to the Royal Academy. He has painted King George six times.

The late John Singer Sargent would occasionally mutter into his beard that "Portrait painting is a pimp's profession!" and go off to do his best work, loose inspired landscapes in watercolor. Frank O. Salisbury has little time for such relaxation. He is not only a court painter but a ceremonial painter, commissioned to record on enormous canvases such scenes as The King's Offering in Henry VII's chapel in Westminster Abbey; The Official Picture of H. R. H. Princess

Mary's Wedding in Westminster Abbey; The Queen Victoria Memorial in Calcutta, India; Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon before the Consistory Courts at Blackfriars. He also still designs stained glass windows.

Other society portraitists flatter their sitters unmercifully and have a feminine love of silks, satins, jewels, stars and ribbons. The secret of Frank Salisbury's success is that he makes his sitters, for the most part worried elderly men, look ten years younger and infinitely healthier than they actually are.

"My advice to young painters," said he recently, "is to remember that nothing is denied to well directed labor. That was Sir Joshua Reynolds' motto, and it is mine."

The trouble with the world, he thinks, is "ill advised Socialists who don't understand finance and running a country. ... I feel the dole is a real mistake. Why, some of the unemployed are receiving as much as 52 shillings a week. That's about $13, quite a big income."

The price of a Salisbury portrait is about $5,000.

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