ETCHINGS ON DISPLAY

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31672, 7 May 1968, Page 3

ETCHINGS ON DISPLAY

After hard-won tuition in art. Miss Alison Pickmere began exhibiting her work in her home town of Auckland in the 19405. She has since won a reputation and has shared the “boom” enjoyed by some other New Zealand artists in recent years.

When the Inter Continental Hotel opened in Auckland in March, there were four of her oil paintings in the lounges and 150 prints of her colour etchings hung in the bedrooms.

When Miss Pickmere left school she was told there was no future for the commercial artist in New Zealand and it was only after 10 years as a secretary that she enrolled herself for part-time courses at the Art School in Auckland. Her background makes her more sensitive to the current popularity and commercial success of New Zealand artists in their own land. Miss Pickmere (in private life Mrs Bond) is having an exhibition of her colour etchings in the Several Arts Gallery in Christchurch this week. Her etchings are semiabstract compositions with a New Zealand flavour and she thirks it was their New Zealand flavour which appealed to the management of the Inter Continental Hotel. IN AUSTRALIA

After she had attended art school in Auckland, Miss Pickmere studied in Sydney and four years ago she did a course in etchings in Kayter’s in Paris. She now lives with her husband, a book binder, on the North Shore where she has her own studio. Her husband also works at home. Her etchings, made on zinc plate and etched with acids, are inked with intaglio and then colour is applied with rollers. These are then put through a press on heavy, dampened paper. Mass Pickmere was pleased by her sale to the hotel and the response to her etchings in New Zealand, but she feels the boom enjoyed by some New Zealand artists might not last. They, too, might be affected by the economic situation. '

Miss Pickmere has her etchings in the Auckland and Wei lington galleries. She also exhibited in the contemporary section of the New Zealand Women Painters’ Exhibition at

the recent arts’ festival In Auckland.

She made the journey down to the South Island so she could "soak in some inspiration.”

“I saw the Wahine wreck and 1 met an old man who showed me his ticket to breakfast which he never had a chance to use before the ship sank. I also want to soak up Christchurch in the autumn season.” she said. Miss Pickmere is shown against a background of her etchings in the Several Arts Gallery in Christchurch yesterday.