Victorian Art in Britain

Alfred Lys Baldry was a distinguished painter, critic and man-about-art of his time. He spent, as mentioned below, four years training in the studio of Albert Joseph Moore. The thought of the fastidious Baldry in this untidy, rundown, cat-infested establishment, is rather amusing. He was, however, a true friend, and of Moore, and supported his master with vigour, against some of the foolish comments made by ignorant critics after his premature death. He does not seem to have allowed his artistic views to be changed by the debased art of the first half of the twentieth century.

OBITUARY The Times, May 20, 1939

PAINTER AND ART CRITIC

Mr A L Baldry, painter and art critic, died suddenly at his home at Marlow Common, Bucks, on Thursday at the age of 80. By his death the art world loses a judicial critic, a genial and cultivated talker, and a picturesque figure. He exhibited for over half a century and produced much that was pleasing in tone and colour, both in pastel and water-colour, and he used his practical knowledge to good effect in his estimation of the work of others.

Alfred Lys Baldry was born at Torquay in 1858, son of the late Mr Alfred Baldry, of Bournemouth. Delicate in youth, he was educated privately and for a few terms at Oxford, but he had to leave the University for reasons of health. Taking up art with enthusiasm, he won a South Kensington scholarship in 1877 and subsequently studied for four years under Albert Moore. As a painter he did not reach the front rank, but he never abandoned art, and exhibited at the Pastel Society (of which he was a member) until the end of his life. His work as a critic dated from the nineties, after he had, in 1891, stage managed the first English production oh Ibsen’s Rosmersholm and other plays at the Vaudeville Theatre. From 1893 to 1908 Baldry was art critic to the Globe, and about 1903 he began to comment on London exhibitions for the Birmingham Post, retaining that connexion for some thirty years. He was also among the early collaborators in the Studio, for which he wrote over a long period, many articles, an anonymous London gallery causerie, and the text of various “special numbers.” A much appreciated Studio feature which he originated and conducted was a symposium signed “Lay-Figure,” in which the Old Artist, the Young Artist, the Critic, and other characters canvassed various aspects of aesthetics and artistic practice month by month. Though towards the end of the series the lineaments of Baldry could be frequently detected through the mask of the Old Artist, he generally stated varying arguments fairly enough.

Inheriting a modest fortune from his father just before the War, Baldry built himself a house in a beautiful setting above Marlow, where he wrote and painted and entertained, and made a very respectable fourth at lawn tennis at the age of 70. He would come up to Bond Street, a distinguished grey-bearded figure, with black hat and ulster and yellow tie, to keep in touch with the wider world of art. Baldry published works on Albert Moore, Marcus Stone, Millais, and Herkomer, writing in a dignified and urbane style. He also wrote books on “Modern Mural Decoration<“ “The Wallace Collection,” “The Practice of Water Colour Painting,” and “How to Pain a Portrait,” in which he acted as rapporteur for his lifelong friend, the late Mr Philip de Laszlo. Mr Baldry married, in 1887, Annie Lilian, youngest daughter of Richard Brocklehurst, by whom he had one son.

PHR 5 December 2005