UNUSUAL ART

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 164, 14 July 1941, Page 9

UNUSUAL ART

Woman Whose Needle Is Her Brush

Remarkable pictures "painted" by typewriters and cosmetics have been exhibited and praised for thencleverness many times in recent years, but Melbourne has been enjoying novelty art of a new Kind— the pictures of a woman for whom a needle is the brush, wools and silks the paints, and linen the canvas «.H he is , Miss E - M - Richardson, whose craft goes far beyond ordinary needlework to become an enchanting pictorial art—her portraits are vigorous, colourful and lifelikeher landscapes.are as fresh as new paint; the whole of her "painting" recalls the legend of Philomela, who robbed of speech, sewed the beauty of her mind into a sampler. An exhibition of 40 of her needle work pictures, which is being held to raise funds for air-raid sufferers is described by a "Sydney Morning Herald writer, who says that pen pencil, photograph, water-colour, oil and etching are all imitated so exquisitely that only a close observer would notice that the pictures were not executed by the ordinary kit of an orthodox artist.

The pictures include black and P°!' trai t-s. "pencil" sketches, stm-lile pictures, mostly in coloured wools, scenes of the Australian bush and the English countryside, and .some river scenes and seascapes. Wool has been used in many of the pictures because silks are now difficult to obtain. Ten different shades and tints of grey and white are used m an evening scene, showing a junk on a river, and these have given some remarkable shaded effects.

None of the stitches used is small (Lather are they wide, sweeping strokes, and the backgrounds are delightfully executed in suitable shades. Some of the pictures are done with silks more than 60 years old. and because they have lost'their bright sheen they give a rich mellowness of colouring. At first glance, portraits of Queen Elizabeth and such famous personalities as Winston Churchill, President Roosevelt. John Masefield. Edvard Grieg and Mr. J. A. Lyons could easily be mistaken for etchings or pen and ink sketches.

A similar portrait of Paderewski. which was among nine pictures exhibited by Miss Richardson at the Glasgow Empire Exhibition, was so striking that Paderewski's secretary bought it as soon as he saw it Strangely enough. Miss Richardson says that she is a very inadequate artist with pencil of brush but once she has a needle threaded with wool or silk in her fingers she can begin any picture or portrait. Her highly original work equals, often excels, similar types of work which keep collectors year in. year out, hunting in the bazaars of Bagdad and the markets of Benares