Paintings now, prints soon

Press, 11 April 1978, Page 19

Paintings now, prints soon

An exhibition of 60 contemporary Australian water-colours, which will open at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery tomorrow, has been organised in New Zealand by the Hastings City Cultural Centre. It illustrates the endeavours of the Australian Water-colour Institute to keep in contact with, and increase the showing of, work from artists in all states, and in all styles. The exhibition features many styles, including abstraction and realism, and among the prominent artists contributing are

Max Angus, well-known as an art commentator on ABC TV and radio; Frederick Bates, whose work is in all major Australian art galleries: Janna Bruce, respected for her Expressionist flower studies; and many others.

The aims of the Australian Water-colour Institute are to promote the qualities of water-colour painting, and, through its exhibitions, to stimulate the interest of other painters, students, and the public. Water-colour has a particular charm of its own, whatever the style, whether it be the glory of Turner or the naivety of greatgrandmother’s efforts to record the strange new country of New Zealand. As Ruskin said in a letter to “The Times” in 1886: “There is nothing that obeys the artist’s hand so exquisitely; nothing that records the subtlest pleasures of sight so perfectly. All the splendours of the prism and the jewel are volgar and few compared to the subdued blending of the infinite opalescence in finely laid watercolour.”

Another exhibition, which will come to the McDougall Gallery next week, features “Graphic Images of Japan.” Japanese print artists have opened a new frontier to the graphic image through their reaction to the changing concept of print art, and in their work demonstrate one phase of modem Japanese culture which has its roots firmly fixed in the traditional image of the Japanese people. When Japan first opened its doors to the outside world in the Meiji Restoration, Japanese print art, like other forms of fine arts, began to diversify in both technique and approach, but the old traditions never quite died out.

Today printmaking is the work of specialist printers who handle the entire process themselves, unlike the traditional woodblocks of the past where the artists did the painting of the first models, and then handed over the woodblock carving and the printing to other specialists. Though for not as long as the Western world, the Japanese have a considerable history of the art

of etching, lithography, and other printed art forms, influenced first by Dutch boo’’s in the eighteenth century and later by personal observation and contact with the Western civilisations.

By the time of World War II contemporary Japanese printmakers had reached the same pattern of progress as their Western counterparts. After the war the art came under American influence, but since then artists have looked to Europe, eager to aosorb every trend that has appeared there. In the 1960 s the print responded to the dawning era of mass culture and became a major factor in the field of art. In these later years Japanese artists have won awards in many international exhibitions, and, through active interchanges with foreign artists, have diversified their methods and tech-

niques. They are now highly skilful in almost every printing method, from photo-engraving to silk-screening, metal print, and stencil processes.

Among the artists whose work is in the exhibition are Kimura Kosuke, Noda Tetsuya and Tamura 1 unio, who have won top awards at the Ljubljana International Exhibition, the International Biennale of Prints in Tokyo, and the International Biennale of Prints in Florence. Younger but still highly regarded are Ay-O. Hara Takeshi, Nagai Kazumasa, Azumaya Takemi, and Yayanagi Tsuyoshi. Although better known as abstract oil painters, Murai Masahai, Toneyama Kojin, and Sugai Kumi also excel in abstract print expression, through the use Of traditional Japanese colours. The exhibition will open on April 21.