ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Lively Forum For Art Developments

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31307, 1 March 1967, Page 12

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Lively Forum For Art Developments

Art competitions are often regarded by devotees of the visual arts as something of a mixed blessing. Some contend that such subjective endeavours as painting and sculpture do not readily lend themselves to “judging” since such a procedure implies a constant scale of values and some fixed criteria, concepts which are viewed with suspicion in the continually changing world of art today. Every artist of originality knows that rules were made to be broken, and that every innovation which has occurred in the visual arts has done so at the expense of some set of rules. The nine-teenth-century French academicians taught that a tree must never occupy the precise centre of a landscape foreground. Cezanne did just that with marvellous result. Others consider art competitions as a means of stimulating community interest in art and providing for the enthusiast on opportunity of viewing current developments in painting. Then there are those who enjoy an art competition in much the same way as a day at the races. Opening night costumes are compared, the socially prominent shed their glamorous light, and the expert study the form of their favourites,

placing their bets according to their informed opinion and their guesses at those held by the judges. Auckland Winner The competition, judged by Messrs W. A. Sutton, Paul Olds and Peter Tomory, was won by Patrick Hanly (shown in the picture in his studio) of Auckland with “Bather Bending.” Hanly’s painting is one of the later developments in his “Figures in light” series, in which he has explored the theme of the figure out-of-doors, in the crisp, sharp light which he considers peculiar to this country. The shapes in his work are simple yet vigorous, the composition unexpected and assured, and he has achieved the effect with great economy and understatement The second prize-winner, Toss Woolaston’s “Buller Landscape,” bears the stamp of the artist’s familiar and distinctive style, although it seems to lack the subtle, richer structural complexities which we have seen in other Woolasiton landscapes. Hard-edge Abstract David Graham, last year’s Hay’s Prizewinner, exhibits one of his tightly composed, herd-edge paintings, “Set-47”, in which he delicately balances strong geometrical forms and rapid directional movements. In the numerous

works in which he has explored balance, tension and movement, Graham’s invention has never flagged. His painting makes a strong impression in the exhibition. Quentin Macfdrlane’s “Marine Study” is one of a series of paintings in which his images are derived from the Sumner area in which he lives. Macfarlane is a masterful colourist and his handling of paint, is both sensitive and sensuous. Like the Woolaston, however, one feels that the painting exhibited here is a lesser work, lacking the vigorous composition, rich impasto and singing colour that we have seen in other works by this artist. Two paintings of cabbage trees, by Vivian Lynne, complete the Canterbury contribution to the exhibition. Her mastery of her materials constitutes a lesson in painting, but while her . colour is beautifully controlled, her images appear a little stale. The cabbage tree has become a rather übiquitous form in New Zealand painting, and it is very difficult nowadays to say anything new about cabbage trees. The quality of the exhibits is of a high order. Balph Hotere’s “Pink Horizontal” commands attention for its subtle composition. Irene O’Neill exhibits' two landscapes in a mature and

strongly personal style and Roger Staples exhibits a vigorous “Red Painting 1.” • The Manawatu prize, Instituted by Mr James Mack, director of the Palmerston North Art Gallery, as a means of stimulating local interest in the visual arts and also as a means of building the gallery’s permanent collection, is one of the happier ventures into art competitions. With the Hay’s prize and Auckland Art Gallery’s annual touring exhibition, it provides another forum where we can observe the current developments in New Zealand painting. The Canterbury Society of Arts presented the exhibition with financial assistance from the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council. —JOHN COLEY.