THE ART SCENE Paint, pots, and prints

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33790, 12 March 1975, Page 11

THE ART SCENE Paint, pots, and prints

<By

G. T. Moffitt)

Three exhibitions at the Robert McDougall Art Gal-: lery, the President’s Exhibi-i tion at the Canterbury' Society of Arts Gallery, and an exhibition of pottery with paintings by Philip Trusttum at Studio 393, in Montreal Street, were the main visual arts fare on the opening week-end of the Christchurch Ans Festival.

The main exhibition at the Robert McDougall Gallery has Impressionism as its theme. The exhibition is drawn from New Zealand collections, and has been organised for the gallery, by the assistant director, Barbara J. de Lambert.

The graphic section of the exhibition contains etchings by Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Auguste Renoir and James McNeil Whistler, and lithograph by Henri de Toulouse Lautrec. It is far more vital than the painting section. The paintings are mannerist works from both the French and English schools of Impressionist painting. One interesting painter listed under the French School is Roderick O’Conor, who was born in America. Of independent means, he chose to live and work in Paris. Although he used the Impressionist technique of leaving separate brush strokes his painting, called “The Farm”, was in some ways closer to Van Gogh, in spirit and energy, than to the Impressionists. Certainly his work has a strength that few of the others can match.

Six New Zealand photographers, Pat Dolan, Warren Jacobs, Lloyd Park, Harry Ruffell, Heinz Sobiecki and Euan Sarginson, all make useful contributions to the festival in their combined exhibition.

Dolan’s panoramic “Lindis Country” is a fine set of colour prints. Jacobs reveals a sympathetic response to children as subjects, and Lloyd Park’s search for pattern in the environment is' completely productive. There is plenty of human incident, some of it in colour and delightful, in Harry Ruffell’s photographs.

Euan Sarginson’s prints of old colonial houses and buildings are a clear uncluttered record, and only Heinz Sobiecki resorts to more technical concerns of the dark room to produce fading and diffuse light effects. The third exhibition mounted by the McDougall Gallery is of paintings and drawings in the Gallery’s permant collection by the New Zealand artist, Sydney Lough Thompson. Sydney Thompson's paintings in many ways complement the exhibition of Impressionist work. An adept and skilful painter, he developed very early in his career a high-keyed palette and a fluent brush. But before that, while he was a pupil of Van der Velden, his work showed a strong teacher influence.

The Robert McDougall Gallery now owns about 20 of Sydney Thompson’s paintings, so it is possible to trace some of the developments that occurred throughout an incredibly long and active career from the work in this exhibition. ■ The President’s Exhibition at The Canterbury Society of Arts Gallery includes 53 paintings, 90 pottery exhibits, 26 pieces of weaving, | four sculptures, and 10 pieces of greenstone jewellery.

The work is mostly by| Canterbury painters, potters, weavers, and sculptors.

With Don Peebles. Michael: Thomas, Michael Eaton, Tedi Bracey and Quentin Mac Far-! lane, all uncompromising: hard-edge or abstract paint-: ers. hanging in The Stewart Mair Gallery, it says much' for two of John Coley’s new-cubist town scapes that they more than hold their own in such company. “Circular Road” and “Crossroads”, both by Coley, although painted in a more mono-chromatic colour scheme, gain great strength from the vertical compositional movements he has developed in them.

It is good to • see Peebles work appearing in a group exhibition again. The three paintings he shows carry on the gayer mood that is evoked by the banner-like shapes and bright colours

that make up the content of' his work. Wilhelmus Ruiprok con-! tinues to probe the fantastic! corners of the mind with! carefully worked surfaces that bear the closest scrutiny. Bashir Baraki strikes a simple but effective note in No. 4. “Landscape”, and Maurice Angelo conveys in purples, reds and ochres, the heat of a MacKenzie Coun-; try summer.

Philip Trusttum’s three large, restless compositions, in which fleeting references to American Indians appear, dominate the Mezzanine Gal- 1 lery.

The pottery is perhaps a little below what one nor-! mally associates with the I best standard in Canterbury,' but a set of goblets byElizabeth Beechy, a set of bowls by Betty Blair, a cas-! serole by Hazel McCaughern.: and a casserole and sherry

bottle by Denise Welsford . would rank alongside most of their better pieces j Two “Flat Weave Rugs” Iby Mary Bartlett are outstanding among the weaving entries. It is pleasing to see John Turner’s work reappearing in the sculpture section. His concrete floor piece has many of the characteristics lof a recently unearthed and ancient relic. The Canterbury Society of Arts also has on displaysome brightly coloured and finely controlled batik ' designs by’ Bambang Oetoro.

An exhibition of work by a group of Christchurch potters opened at 393 Montreal Street on Sunday, but such was the density of the

crowds attending the opmi ing that it was impossible tc view most of the work.