SKETCH CLUB.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 246, 17 October 1929, Page 22

SKETCH CLUB.

ANNUAL EXHIBITION.

WATERCOLOURS AXD OILS,

The exhibition of the year's work done by the Sketch Club of the Auckland Society of Arts was opened last evening by Mies Melville and there was a good gathering of members and friends inter-

ested in art. The club has allotted a certain wall space to each member and allowed members to send in whatever they choose; the result appears to the lay mind to need revision, botli in the interest of the artist and in that of the public to whose taste the appeal ie being made. Selection is one of the fundamentals in all art work, selection and design, and this might be more kept in mind by local pamters. The criticism might also be made that the club works too much together, and that all the sketches might have come out of one studio. New Zealand painters who wish to excel must struggle to break away from the Victorian convention, to which they are apt to be bound. A pretty bit of scenery is not necessarily a picture, unless it fills the given space pleasingly and forms some fine and solid shape. A tree, for instance, is not a flat green object. It is a globular object firsthand then a loosely built object glowing with light and colour. When this feeling of solidity in nature is sacrificed for the pretty effect, the painter too often finds that the pretty effect fails to please and wonders why. Light ie the one predominating factor in all great art, and the real searching study of light and the solidness of the earth and the objects on the earth, is what Cezanne has taught to this present epoch of painting. From his researches arose all the wild ideas about cubism and futurist art, that mark tho present day, but are passing. Without this knowledge of exact draughtsmanship apd modelling no true art will ever evolve in New Zealand. It is better to paint one object and try try depict it truthfully, giving both the spirit and the atmosphere of the place, than to produce a dozen sketches that do not contain this search for truth.

Amongst those who have exhibited this year is Miss Eise, who shows some sketches in oils of Australian gums and landscape, which Imve a nice feeling for colour. Mrs. Spicer hae a number of watcrcolours, in one of which, a view of a daffodil field with Auckland in the background, she has tackled a difficult subject successfully. A pear tree in blossom is also a difficult thing well handled. Mrs. Alice White ehows eome marigolds, which are handled in watercolour in a wet and free manner, while an old well head, by the same painter, lias light and drawing. Miss Ivy Perry stands out from the other members of the club in that she has struck out a new and useful line in drawings of the lychgate at St. Aidan's, and the interior of St. Paul's. Studies like these demand more definite knowledge of draughtsmanship than trees or flowers, whose outlines can be fussed and still attract the untrained mind. Mies Ivy Copelanc also has a well drawn subject in a bore, New Plymouth, in which an oil well is treated with a eure touch. Miss Amy Dawson exhibits a watercolour of the heads of three draught horses, which has both colour and draughtsmanship, and this sketch would da credit to a more ambitious art show. Miss Frances Wright has two watercolours of Titirangi which show the blue of the ranges behind an old red shed. One of the most striking sketches in the show ie that done by Miss Hilda Wiseman, of an old macro carpa tree with a reel coav "byre behind. This is delightfully and truly drawn and the lighting is clean, and bright. Amongst others showing are Mr. Welsey Woolhouse, Mr. G. G. Lyne, Miss E. E. Martin, Mrs. Adele Younghusband, Miss Stella Moore, Mrs. Dorothy Aehton, who has some well painted flower and other studies, Miss Dorothy Vallance Young, Mrs. Fletcher, Mies Alice J. Westwood, Mrs. H. M. Mathewman, Mrs. A. M. Jord'on, Miss Ethel B. Caulier who has made a watercolour drawing of the church at Otahuhu that has decorative qualities, and Mies Goodfellow, who has attempted some street scenes, a subject that could with advantage be more studied by those painting in our midst.