Letter to John Masefield, 1903, about "the program for the new gallery at Bradford"

D. S. MacCOLL

About this Item

Autograph letter signed, 2pp. 8vo, Twickenham, 15 November 1903. "I am much interested to hear of the program for the new gallery at Bradford," writes D.S. MacColl (Dugald Sutherland MacColl 1859-1948), at the time of writing Editor of The Architectural Review. "I hope the exhibition will be as successful as that at Wolverhampton, & in the hands of the committee who are making arrangements I have no doubt it will be." Before ever John Masefield published his first book of poems, Salt Water Ballads (1902), the collector Laurence W. Hodson employed him as his secretary in Wolverhampton - notably in arranging the Art Section of the great Art and Industrial Exhibition held there in 1902. On the strength of this, William Rothenstein set Masefield to organizing the opening exhibition at the new Cartwright Memorial Hall in Bradford, in spring 1904. Masefield's biographer Constance Babington Smith implies that he made short work of this, but, given the date of MacColl's letter, this evidently wasn't the case. "So far as I am concerned," MacColl tells him, "I shall feel it an honour to contribute. It will be easy to specify the watercolours a little later." The first of the several portraits by William Strang of the future Poet Laureate dates from 1903; it was a drawing, inscribed to Laurence Hodson.

Seller Inventory # 32M100287

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Letter to John Masefield, 1903, about "the program for the new gallery at Bradford"
• Binding: No Binding
• Condition: Very Good
• Signed: Inscribed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Manuscripts