A BRONZE FOR $50,000

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33653, 1 October 1974, Page 14

A BRONZE FOR $50,000

Bronze sculptures by a New Zealander, Colin Watson, have been bought by such diverse international celebrities as Aristotle Onassis, Carol Baker, Sarah Churchill, and Sir Christopher Soames.

In Palm Beach, Florida, a Texas millionaire paid SUSSO,OOO for a life-size sculptured bull with three dancers on its back that the New Zealander was exhibiting at a Florida gallery.

The income that Mr Watson has received from these and other sales has led to a life style that a sculptor himself finds hard to believe.

He has established two studios, one in Rome and the other in New York, and

'is able to divide his time between the two cities — “summer in Rome and winter in New York,” he said, reports an N.Z.P.A. staff correspondent in Washington. ,

“I find it hard sometimes to believe that I have been able to do it. But the exhibition in Palm Beach got gre’.t publicity, and the sale of the bull helped things along.

Mr Watson is now showing his work at a New York gallery, the Town House. A percentage of proceeds from this show is to be given to a Manhattan drug rehabilitation centre. His exhibition contains some 50 bronzes, and a small collection of silver jewellery. The prices for the bronze works vary from SUS6OO to SUS2O,OOO. “Colin”, as he signs himself or his work, left his home in Palmerston North

19 years ago for London. He stayed there for seven years before moving to Rome and establishing what has become his "home studio”.

He said he had been encouraged by the interest shown in his work in Rome by two former New Zealand ambassadors to Italy, Sir Alister Mclntosh and Mr lan Stewart. An exhibition of his work had been arranged at the Ambassador’s residence in Rome, and subsequently he had taken part with some New Zealand ceramists in an exhibition at New Zealand House in London. “The standard of our ceramists now is very high. They seem to be getting much more encouragement from the community than used to be the case,” he said.