6 



FOREWORD 



think, be said as to Mr. Luard's own training and 

 career, and I hope that the artist will forgive a critic, 

 who is fully conscious that good wine needs no bush, 

 for playing the showman. 



Lowes Dalbiac Luard, as the name shows, belongs 

 to an old Huguenot family of Norman-French origin, 

 and it is interesting to note that one of the capitals in 

 the Abbaye aux Femmes at Caen, from which town the 

 family fled after the Edict of Nantes, was designed and 

 carved by a Luard. It is clear that the family's artistic 

 bent has always been strong and persistent. His grand- 

 father, though a soldier by profession, was also a note- 

 worthy artist. For sufficient testimony we may refer 

 to his " Views of India " and his " Dress of the British 

 Army," and more remarkable still, a series of water 

 colours executed for a diorama of Indian life, which was 

 painted in oils by Louis Haghe and shown at the old 

 " Globe " in Leicester Square, and afterwards in 

 America. 



Mr. Luard's uncle, John Luard, also a soldier, became 

 an artist, joined the Pre-Raphaelite movement, and for 

 some time shared a studio with Sir John Millais. One 

 of his Crimean subjects had so great a success at the 

 Academy that it had to be railed off from the crowd. 

 As Colonel Luard, R.E., his father, was also an extremely 



clever water-colour artist, it is hardly surprising that 

 Art should have claimed Mr. Luard for her own. 



Mr. Luard was born in India and educated at Clifton 

 College, where the neighbouring Zoo was an unfailing 

 attraction to a boy keenly interested in drawing living 

 animals. But even before that time movement was his 

 great interest. From the age of five he was constantly 

 drawing horses, always in motion ; and family tradition 

 tells how, when only eight years old, he actually lost his 

 dinner one day through following a milkmaid carrying 

 cans on a yoke, keenly alert to watch the balance of her 

 pails and swing of her skirt, of which he afterwards 

 made a complete water-colour drawing from memory. 

 Even at that early age it never occurred to him not to 

 draw a thing just because it was moving. 



On leaving Clifton, he worked for a time at a class 

 in Gower Street, conducted by Davis Cooper, son of 

 Abraham Cooper, R.A. Passing to the Slade School, 

 he studied under Professors Brown and Tonks. At 

 the Slade, though he profited by close study of the 

 figure, he was never really stimulated by the posed 

 model. It was when the model rose from the throne, 

 and moved naturally and freely, relaxed his limbs, and 

 stretched his arms, that Luard began to draw with real 

 interest and zest. He was not a School draughtsman. 



