SOCIETY OF ARTS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22367, 2 April 1938, Page 9

SOCIETY OF ARTS

Annual Exhibition

A SELECTION OF THE PICTURES (specially -WRITTEN for the press.) ’ [By F.J.P.] ! 11 > Influences from outside on the work | of the exhibitors at the Canterbury , Society of Arts show, now open at I the Durham Street Gallery, are few > and far between. Whether this is good , or bad is too big a question to be ■ gone into here. Some of the land- , scapes owe their inspiration to Clau- ; sen, plus a dash of water; others are sired by D. Y. Cameron out of a rail- [ way poster; on the whole, our painters keep to themselves. Their remoteness from the lively exhibitions in Europe is evident. Until a vigorous series of exhibitions of the best in painting, including that of recent years, comes cur way, they are likely to remain remote. In the following selection of pictures an attempt has been made to choose pictures of more than passing value; obviously much that will seem to others good has been emitted. Flower pictures may be found in The list—anemones, sweet william, zinnias, roses, freesias, tulips, magnolias, chrysanthemums, and ! there are many more—suggests a good crop, one in which may surely be found a few promising blooms. But with two or three exceptions they are the same old flowers we have seen for years. Hardy annuals, they should be dubbed, which no white butterfly will ever ravage. At show after show they apjjear, as well-timed as green shoots in spring, now accompanied by a brass tray or Chinese ginger jar. now backed by an “art” curtain or mahogany table, to give the right reflections. Why they are painted, goodness only knows. The majority of them suggest that our painters have not looked at flowers properly in their lives. Pew things are as startling and as beautiful as flowers when painted by an artist, as anyone who has seen good contemporary still life abroad can testify. Miss Rata Lovell Smith, in No. 151, “Still Life,” has painted an engaging little picture, simple, charming, and ' direct, as enjoyable now as when first seen. It arouses the feeling that nothing has bren lost on the way. Portraits and Others Portraits this year are few, whether we count the orthodox or the unorthodox. Mr A. H. O’Keefe catches the eye immediately with his study of a boy in No. 50, “Charlie.” It is a lively bit of work, not to be passed by, for there is a look in this boy’s eye, in his alert face and figure, that compels a longer study. The face has a muddy look. Mr O’Keefe apparently mixes a lot of black into his colour, but the character and life he gets with it are there for anyone to see. Mr James Cook has sent out a welcome batch from France, though none, it must be admitted, is up to the level of the one hung in the Robert McDougall Gallery. But the best of them. No. 64. described in the catalogue as “Le Angeles, South of France,” comes very near that, and is unusually fine. Described baldly, it is nothing but a collection of buildings Showing their roof-tops. Where we would have seen a ramshackle lot of buildings he has seen, and makes us see, a composition of exquisite order, 'clarity, and colour. Miss Hazel Campbell in No. 26, “The Leafy Settle,” has painted what the reader will think is an old-fashioned subject, the humble cottage set in a bower of trees on a hot summer’s day. ft is a subject with which all are familiar,' one for which most of us have a sneaking regard. In this picture it is well and unsentimentally set down. Among so much uninspired stuff, this is a simple, honest picture. So. too, is Miss Phyllis Drummond Bethune’s No. 145, “Roadside,” which one is tempted to dismiss at first as another Central Otago landscape, but which on closer consideration reveals an honest brushwork that is all too rare in this show. At least one can see what Miss Bethune was after when she set about painting this picture; and if she has not got all of it down, she has got a good deal. Mr . Owen R. Lee has a good picture in No. 53, “The Cloud Shadow,” a vigorous sketch, well filled. The form of the picture is unsatisfying. The black shadow breaks the composition into three parts that just will not come together again; but there is something genuine about his work which is attractive. Mr J. A. M. Brittenden’s No. 164, “Bluegums,” freshly and Miss 1 Muriel Harkness’s sensitive No. 163, ’“From the Takeha,’ somehow go together with Mr Lee’s. Mr Sydney Thompson delights in; senses with his lovely painting of ‘Cherry Blossom, Grasse,” No. 23. It is interesting to see how one. who has paipted so much in France sees New Zealand in the two Wellington harbour sketches, Nos. 228 and 230. Miss Ida G. Eise has a very curious little picture in No. 57, “Storm Approaching.” It is quite unlike her two 1 other pitetures in quality, indeed quite unlike anything else in the show in ' this respect; for it is an imaginative little work, a glance at a strangely-lit ' country. There is a hint of the un- : usual in it, expressed in a colour that 1 is surely not of New Zealand. It con- : sorts ill with its fellows, as does an- ■ other picture in an awkward cor- i ner, No. 128, “The New Road,” : bt Mr R. E. Lonsdale. Whether one likes this way of looking at things, whether it says any more than the “safer” landscapes, had better be left ( to the individual to decide; it is an - intelligent painting. Mr T. A. McCormack, who has : painted some lovely flower pictures, ; disappointingly has only two pictures hiing, the larger of which, No. 76, i “Coast, Island Bay,” raises one’s hopes : for- New Zealand painting. He gets \

at essentials, is concerned to put them down surely, and leaves the imagination of the onlooker to work on them' Seemingly so simplified in statement, there is nevertheless so much there. Almost alone among these exhibitors, he dominates and handles his materia) without bding too arbitrary with it. All his work is exciting. * Of a host of water-colours. Miss Enga Washbourn’s No. 80, “After Rain, Nelson,” Miss Nancy Waller’s No.\ 185. “View from Scarborough,” and Miss D. Spencer-Bower’s No. 227, “Beau Danube,” are worth singling out. Miss Spencer-Bower had the wit to turn to the recent visit of a Russian ballet company for material; she has certainly captured some grace of line. After Mr James Cook’s No. 253. “Avignon,” in which his pencil is a joy to the eye, and Mrs E. Rosa Sawtell’s truthful “Governor’s Bay,” No. 241, the drawings and etchings do not yield very much. The only piece of sculpture is Mr E. Trethewey’s No. 268, “Torso,’’ a singular work, if only in that, being described as a torso, it is yet headed. Quite apart from dictionary definitions of what a torso should be, this would be better described as a thoroughly unhappy piece of work, were it not so meaningless. It is lacking in grace line and symmetry; in fact, in any of the qualities one usually associates with this medium.)