ARTS NEWS IN BRIEF

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

ARTS NEWS IN BRIEF

Bronze gift A bronze sculpture by the New Zealand-born sculptor, Betty Issaacs, has been accepted by the Minister of Overseas Trade (Mr Walding). The presentation was made in the New Zealand consulate in New York by the sculptor’s husband, Judge Julius Issaacs, a former judge of the New York Criminal Court. Mrs Issaacs, who died in 1971, has pieces on permanent display at the Cooper Union Museum in New York, and her work figures in many prominent New York art collections.

She was educated in Wellington and travelled to the United States in 1913. She subsequently studied in New York, Vienna, and Warsaw, and her work won prizes

from the American National Association of Women Artists and the American Society of Contemporary Artists.

She taught art in New York, and was highly regarded as a free-lance artist, specialising in design for textiles and wallpaper. Judge Issaacs, who last visited New Zealand with his wife in 1966, said her dearest wish had been to return to New Zealand to teach art.

8850,000 canvas

A painting by the American Expressionist, Willem De Kooning, cost less than SUS3OOO dollars in 1953 and has been sold for SUSBSO,OOO to the Australian National Art Gallery. It is the highest price paid for the work of a living artist,

the Associated Press reported.

The price was about SUS3OO,OOO more than the previous record, set by a Picasso painting. Mr Robert Gray, a Chicago art dealer, confirmed the purchase by the Australian gallery, but declined to confirm the price for the picture, “Woman V.” Mr Gray said that after seven months of negotiations, he had arranged the sale of the painting. The vendor, Ruth Culbert Rosenberg, of Chicago, bought the painting at a New York gallery in 1953. The previous highest price for a De Kooning was SUSIBO,OOO for “Police Gazette.” “Well Hung”

The farce, “Well Hung,” by the New Zealand writer Robert Lord, will be produced by the Trinity Square Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island, in the United States. Trinity Square is regarded as one of the leading American theatre companies. “Well Hung” was first produced at the Downstage Theatre, Wellington, in January. It is running at the Nimrod Theatre in Sydney.