UNKNOWN HERE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 139, 13 June 1936, Page 12

UNKNOWN HERE.

FAMOUS IN LONDON.

AUCKLAND-BORN ARTIST.

MAN WINS HIS WAY THROUGH

More than 30 years ago there was a lad attending the Beresford Street public school who was recognised by his teachers to have outstanding artistic gifts. Ho left, and did not even go to a secondary school. Apparently his ir'ifts were to remain undeveloped. Years passed. He left the country, and Aiickland forgot him. Indeed, they had had no cause at that time to remember him. To-day he is in the first flight of artists in Britain. His name is Frederick James Porter.

Even that name will not convey much to the average Aucklander, even though lie may be interested as a dilettante in art. Porter is not known. Yet is he recognised as having had a great influence ori impressionistic landscape painting in London. He is president of the "London group," bo (jailed, which knows as its members many of the famous artists of Britain. His works have been chosen as part of collections which have toured America and the Continent. Yet when he sent four of

liis paintings to bo hung in the annual exhibition of the Auckland Society of Arts some seven years ago, no notice was taken of them—so little, indeed, that people either have forgotten or else never knew that his works have been to Auckland. Pictures Come to Auckland. Pour pictures came out then, and they are in private homes in Auckland, and that leads to the telling of the story of F. J. Porter from his boyhood. His mother lives in Market Road, Epsom, he has brothers in the city, and it is in their homes that some of his pictures hang. It was his mother who told the story, pointing, as she did so, to many of her son's works that hang on the walls of her little home. From them you may trace the development of the man from the student to the famous artist; but from her you will learn the story of a boy who was always going to be a painter, even though, when lie first said so, he saw little chance. This was the lad who more than 30 years ago showed promise at the Beresford Street School. When he left there, it seemed that he would have a chance to go no further. Yet he kept on drawing and working, and at length became the pupil of one of New Zealand's artists who is recognised in his own country, C. F. Goldie. Some of the work that hangs on the walls in his mother's house dates from this stage. Then ho went to Australia, where he stayed for some 11 months. This was about 1904. I'rorti Australia he went to Paris, where lie worked for some five years in the •Tulicn Academy. After that he went to London, where his struggles began. The War Intervened. The war intervened, and in those years no one was interested in art and no one wanted to buy it. Those were hard years, lean years, when it was a matter ra(!;cr of bread than fame. Now, however, he is the head of the London County Council school of art. This was the information contained in a recent letter to his mother.

As she was speaking his mother turned to one picture hanging 011 a wall. "It is a scene in Richmond Park," she said, "and I sat with him while he did it." Mrs. Porter, thdugli an elderly lady, went to England some six years ago by herself to visit her son. In point of fact the house in Market Road is full of works of art done by the son of the house. Chosen for Touring Collection. Some seven years ago a collection of contemporary works .of British artists, officially sponsored in England, was sent to the Continent and America. Some of the works of this erstwhile Auckland boy were among them. No more recent works than those he sent out to the Auckland society about the same time are known to be in Auckland. He lias been called in his circle the "modern Constable."' Certain it is that he has been greatly influenced by that great artist's impressionistic work, and he in his turn has become a great influence on that style, particularly regarding landscape, in England. One of the four paintings sent out to Auckland hangs in his mother's home, while there is another in the home of his brother,- Mr. R. C. Porter, in Heme Bay. This is a painting of a Sussex village.