WOMEN ARTISTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 50, 28 February 1935, Page 14

WOMEN ARTISTS.

FROM CULTURE TO COMMERCE. Though statistics of the art schools reveal that women generally take up art study mainly for culture, greater numbers are now resorting to it for professional and commercial reasons. Women, indeed, made quite a brave | show in the British Art in Industry Exhibition, writes au "Evening News" | representative. The names of about j 100 appear as the designers of various | classes of fabrics, pottery, furniture and glassware, and also as book illustrators; and nearly 230 of the exhibits are the acknowledged work of women. Women artists are also employed in many of the art studios of commercial firms, where they work anonymously. They appear to be specially attracted to ceramics, led by Mrs. Dod Procter,! A.R.A., who has designed a, teaset painted in enamels, while Miss Dora Batty has little nursery sets of "BoPeep," "Red Biding Hood," and "The Babes in the Wood," arid Miss Anne Potts dainty porcelain figures of animals. There are quite a, host of charming pottery designs by Miss Vera Huggins,' Miss Fred Beardmore, Miss Millicent Taplin, and a dozen others, who supply about 00 of the designs in this section. Dame Laura Knight and Mrs. Dod Procter both figure conspicuously as designers of glassware. It is something new" to find " Dame Laura designing spirit decanters, beer jugs and cocktail shakers, but that is just what (he Royal Academy exhibition is meant to encourage, and this distinguished A.R.A. has. shown that the trained artist can apply her art to anything. *

Lent by the Queen. Mrs. Dod Procter vies with her in new de-signs for tumblers, glasses and beer mugs, and half a dozen other women have produced novelties in glassware of various kinds. In furniture there are several designs by Lady Heal, and a charming tea casket in rosewood, designed by Miss Betty Joel, is of special interest because it is lent by the Queen, to whom it was presented by the Empire Tea Growers. Lady Gertrude Crawford's design in plastics include a candlestick (lent by the Queen) and several cosmetic boxes and vases, and among the posters shown by Miss Dora Batty is one entitled "The I;oval Wedding."

Books by Rebecca West and Edith Sitwell arc exhibited as specimens of artistic printing and binding, and nearly a. score of women are among the illustrators of books* —a bra noli ot art in which they are now making grout headway.