Kauri Figure For Wool Award Winner

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29339, 19 October 1960, Page 2

Kauri Figure For Wool Award Winner

A slim, symbolic female figure draped in a sweeping length of wool is the "Oscar” for the Wool Board’s national wool awards contest, to be decided in Wellington later this month. It will be featured on every awardwinning garment in the autumn fashion season, from haute coutere models to casual knitwear.

Designed by Mr George Bridgman, art director of the National Publicity Studios, the original figure was carved from kauri by the studio’s carver, Mr Geoffrey Coward. It stands 18in, and represents nearly a fortnight of patient work with Mr Coward’s fine chisels. Mr Coward learnt his art as an apprentice in London. He has been in New Zealand since 1921, and his work has found its way round the world in New Zealand tourist displays. "My idea was something generally symbolic to show how readily wool adapts to clothing and how gracefully its drapes the figure,’’ said the Oscar’s originator, Sfr Bridgman. “For the purpose it had to be a simple, graceful figure in the modern style. ' “It’s a beautiful piece of wood,” said the carver, "and I think it carries its message well” It was true, he said, that a. carver looked at a block of wood, saw his finished carving in it and then “cleared away the rubbish" until the work was done. With a figure such as the Oscar, care was needed to ensure that it remained a graceful thing when viewed from every angle. With kauri there was also the danger of splitting the wood. The figure will go to the manufacturer making the supreme award-winning garment

among the 400 entries in the Wool Board’s contest It will be presented at a gala showing of the winners at the Hutt Town Hall on October 31. Each of the 40 section winners will receive a replica of it, struck oh a gold medal.