Mr. Anderson is really an artist, not only in colour and form, but also in grouping and harmony. The greatest compliment he ever received was when he was invited to design the dresses for the famous “Ring” at Munich. That for an Englishman was indeed high praise from Germany. In working for the stage he often does six or seven hundred costumes for a single historical play. Each has to harmonise with its own tableaux groups, be right in detail and singly, yet form part of a scheme for the effect of the whole.
The water-colour drawing of me was done in a couple of hours. (See [page 161].)
One summer day in 1903, I sat to John Lavery for a little sketch of my head, which that brilliantly clever artist painted in thirty minutes. I chanced to have sat next to him at dinner shortly before, and he had then exclaimed:
“I would like to paint your head!”
“You know how I hate sitting,” I replied.
“But could you not spare me half an hour one afternoon just for the gratification of making a sketch of you? Once I have gained that satisfaction I will give you the picture.”
This put a different complexion upon the matter, and accordingly one afternoon I went to his studio, near the South Kensington Museum, to be decapitated. That studio is probably the best proportioned in London. It was built by Sir Coutts Lindsay, and is almost square like a box. The high walls are covered with a sort of dull brown paper, and a few French chairs and bureaus are its only decoration. I sat down in one of these special chairs waiting for him to arrange his easel, when he exclaimed:
“That will do, just sit as you are, and if you don’t mind I should like to take off my coat, as when I paint at high pressure it is hot work.” To this I assented, and in a moment he was hard at it.
“Talk as much as you like,” he said. “Forget you are sitting; move your head or your arms as you wish, just simply think you are paying me a little call; never mind the rest.”