Arts And Music Top artists in bank workshop

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32497, 6 January 1971, Page 10

Arts And Music Top artists in bank workshop

Three leading New Zealand artists have been engaged by the National Bank as tutors for its art workshop for secondary school pupils, to be held in Wellington in May.

They are Kate Coolahan, one of New Zealand’s leading woman printmakers; John Drawbridge, a leading graphic artist; and a former Frances Hodgkins fellow, Rayph Hotere, now of Dunedin.

The workshop is an extension of the bank’s annual mural and water-colour prizes and has been arranged because of the interest shown by schools in the slides and taped comments made available to them by the bank from its annual award competitions. The plans for the workshop were announced last year to coincide with “Education Week.” It will be run in conjunction with the Department of Education and has the full support of the Minister of Education and the Director-General. Art teachers have been invited to submit the folios of their. most promising students in the fifth, sixth and seventh forms. Selection will take place in the 10 educational districts. At least one student will be selected in each of the districts and up to five in the larger areas, such as Wellington and Auckland.

The workshop will be held in the school of design at the Wellington Polytechnic. Arrangements will be made for the 25 selected students to travel to Wellington on May 16, when they will attend the opening function and course briefing. A full programme is being organised and it is thought that two evenings will also be spent working, one at an informal art forum and another will be set aside for a social function. During the week the students will be taken on a field trip. Students will be free to travel home on Saturday, May 22. All costs of transport, accommodation, meals and materials will be met by the bank. John Drawbridge, who is known both locally and internationally, will be drawing tutor for the 25 students. Awarded a National Art Gallery travelling scholarship 1957, he studied print-making at the Central School of Art and Crafts, London, from 1957-60 and was awarded Diploma of Distinction in 1960. An associate member of the Royal Society of Painters, Etchers and Engravers, he studied etching with S. W. Hayter and Johnny Friedlander in Paris from 1960 to 1961. He was commissioned to paint the mural in New Zealand House, London, and also to complete a mural for Expo 70, in Japan. Mr Drawbridge is at pre-

sent working on two commissions for Shaw Savill and the IBM Building in Wellington. An honours graduate of East Sydney Technical College (National Art School of Australia), Kate Coolahan is a member of both the New Zealand and the British Society of Industrial Artists and is a foundation member of New Zealand Print Council. Her recent exhibitions include: Fifth International Young Artists Exhibition Japan, Second International Engraving Biennial Buenos Aires and Ninth Premi International Dibuix Joan Miro, Barcelona. She was commissioned to provide editions of prints for Expo 70 and industrial firms and hotels in New Zealand. Mrs Coolahan will take printmaking classes. Ralph Hotere, who will teach painting, is mainly self-taught, but has worked for periods under Gordon Tovey, Charlton Edgar, Bill Reid and Fred Shewell and in London under William Turnbull and Cecil Collins at the Central School. He was awarded the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship at Otago University in 1969, and a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council award in 1970. He has held exhibitions in New Zealand, France and England.