CHILDREN’S PAINTINGS

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30191, 24 July 1963, Page 20

CHILDREN’S PAINTINGS

Exhibition At McDougall The McDougall Art Gallery, after hibernating for so long that one had almost forgotten its existence, is currently showing some signs erf life in the form of a touring British Council exhibition of children's pidnibings, and two small Rodin bronzes and a Lurcat tapestry bought by the Government from the New Zealand fund in France for cultural development. Why the British Council should go to the expense of sending children’s paintings around the world is obscure —for if there is an international style anywhere it is in children’s art—'but the exhibition may be welcomed, for it contains some good examples. The qualities expected of children's painting—freshness and abundance of colour, ns. ave inventivenesß of design and uninhibited application of paint—are present in quantity. and they are perhaps found most consistently in the work of children in the 10 and 11-year group. A few pieces show exceptional talent. Among them are No. 7, in which a seven-year-old girl uses colour of poetic delicacy; No. 27. a firm ano vigorous life drawing by a girl of nine: Nos. 37 and 40. two works by 11-year-olds notable for fine design and colour respectively: and No. 50 a Matisse-like figure in a patterned chair by a 13-year-old girl. Neither of the tiny Rodin bronzes is of any great consequence: they look like posthumous casts from wax sketches. But both of them do give an indication of the fluid, sensuous quality of Rodin's modelling.

Jean Lucrat has played a g eat part in the revival of tapestry in France and his “Le Venetian” is a most handsome piece of deeora'.rion which deserves to be hung in less ungracious fashion. It needs not only space around it. but more light so that the richness and brilliance of the ultramarine blue is fully revealed.—J .K.