SOCIETY OF ARTS.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19888, 27 March 1930, Page 8

SOCIETY OF ARTS.

PRIVATE yiEW TO-NIGHT. MANY pictures of high STANDARD. Commenting upon the pictures already hung for this year's exhibition of the Canterbury Society of Arts, of which the private view will be held this evening, Mr Lawson Balfour, of the Boyal Art Society of Sydney, and formerly of Christchurch, said yesterday that what attracted his attention was the great increase in the number of pictures, compared with those hung eighteen years ago, when he used to exhibit here. The general standard of the work shown was now higher, and there was no "tail end" to the exhibition. Notable was the number of fieure paintings generally, and of figure compositions, for in former times very little of this type of work was on the W jf S 'the exhibition was transported to Sydney it would create a great deal of interest, as over there people were inclined to think that very little work of consequence was done outside their own area, and it was a pity that some scheme of exchange of exhibitions could not be arranged. Mr Balfour also noted the absence here of modernist pictures, which were very much in evidence in Sydney. Although much work of this sort, which was really a kind of decoration, was not very important, some of the artists working along ! modern lines had distinct contributions to make to art in general.