Keen Interest In Painting

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30937, 18 December 1965, Page 16

Keen Interest In Painting

From the Royal and Ancient to another R.A., the Royal Academy, may seem a far step, but Australia’s greatest golfer, Peter Thomson, may yet enter both doors. He has developed a very lively interest in painting, and though he may not yet be as sure of his line as he is on the putting green, he

measures, among the great moments of a crowded life, the recent sale of one of his own works. To most golfers, the game offers delightful freedom from business worries, so it is only natural that those who play golf for a livelihood should look elsewhere for recreation. One of the young Australians playing in the tournament at present forsook his practice to fish; Thomson’s great compatriot, K. D. G.

Nagle, has a passion for racehorses. On his first visit to New Zealand in 1950, Thomson stayed with Mr and Mrs C. H. Elsom, of Upper Riccarton. Mrs Olive Elsom is one of Canterbury’s best-known artists. Thomson showed great interest in her work, and when he returned home he took one of her paintings, as well as the cup for winning the New Zealand Open golf championship. Since then, Thomson has studied under a pupil of the famous Australian William Dargie. On tour, he makes for the art galleries while most of the others seek the comforts of the nineteenth. And when he returns to Melbourne after today’s tournament, he will again take one of Mrs' Elsom’s paintings to hang in his new home at Toorak. It is an oil painting of Elide Beaumont, a mountain of more than 10,000 ft in the Franz Josef region. Thomsdn says he Is already aware that “art is long and life is short,” so he intends to concentrate on his studies whenever possible, so that when he retires from tournament golf in about 10 years he will be able to aim at something else.