Women featured in Group Show

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33967, 7 October 1975, Page 19

Women featured in Group Show

Women will be featured among the exihibitors at this year’s Group Show, which will open in the C.S.A. gallery on Saturday. Three of the featured artists—Doris Lusk, Ida Lough and Ria Bancroft—are well known in Christchurch, but two of the guests are “unkowns” who were spotted by the Group’s talent scouts in Auckland. Colin McCahon recommended Anna Caselberg, who will show paintings; and Claudia Eyley will exhibit at the invitation of Pat Hanly, a leading Auckland painter who is best known in Christchurch for his mural in the Town Hall. Mr Hanly himself will also be an exhibitor, showing a series of seven new paintings, each 18in square, entitled "Seven Ages of Man.” Doris Lusk, who recently returned from a year’s study

in Italy, will show drawings done there, and Ida Lough and Ria Bancroft will show works commissioned for the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. With Mr Hanly, John Parker, this year’s Frances Hodgkins Fellow, Ralph Hotere, a former Hodgkins Fellow, and Mr McCahon head the list of featured painters. Mr Parker will show 10 large drawings, studies for his major project as fellow, which he describes as "a sort of drawn film.” They are based on views of the countryside from a car window. Mr Hotere will show a series of small paintings, "Pathway to the Sea,” illustrating a poem by lan Wedde; and Mr McCahon, who recently completed a huge mural for the National Parks Board, will show paintings related to the mural, possibly preparatory works for the "Urewera” series. Local members of the Group who will exhibit include Leo Bensemann, G. T. Moffitt, John Coley, Pat Mulcahy, Quentin MacFarlane, Gavin and Vivien Bishop, and Olivia SpencerBower. Louise Lewis, who recently returned to Christchurch after three years in Auckland, will show new work, and Tony Fomison,

now living in Auckland, will send work. Guest artists, besides the two Auckland painters, include Joanne Hardy, Stephanie Sheehan, Rosemary Campbell, Helen Rockel, Bruce Edgar, and Llewellyn Summers. A greenstone carver, Ross Masgarlane, will show a small collection of pieces. Printmakers whose work will be shown include Barry Cleavin, who recently returned after teaching in Australia, and Marilyn Webb, of Dunedin. From Coromandel, the potter, Barry Brickell, will send three exhibition pieces. Guest potters are the Canterbury potter, David Brokenshire; Mirek Smisek, of Te Horo; and Margaret Milne, of Auckland. Several exhibits will be of special interest to weavers. These are the large woven panels made for the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament by Ida Lough (which will be shown in association with drawings and models by Ria Bancroft for the cathedral doors which have been commissioned from her); and works by two North Island weavers, Andre Siminon and Georgia Suiter, who were invited by Jenny Hunt, of Christchurch, who will herself show new weaving.