N.Z. ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 190, 8 May 1937, Page 13

N.Z. ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS

Autumn Show Opened PROFESSOR SHELLEY ON CULTURE Interest in art continues to nourish in Wellington. That was evident from the unusually large attendance at the National Art Gallery last evening, when the autumn show of the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts was formally declared open. . The president, Mr. D. A. Ewen, said it was a happy augury that this was the first academy show held in their own gallery, for on the opening of the building the main gallery was given over to the Empire Art Loan Collection. This was the twenty-first autumn show of the New Zealand Academy, so it was, tn a sense, a coming-of-age. “I think vou will agree with me, said Mr. Ewen, “that the standard is very good indeed. I am not saying anything about the selection committee, for that is always done very well by others, but I do wish to congratulate the hanging committee on the form in which the pictures have been hung. I wish to welcome once more Mr. S. JLamorne Birch, R.A., who is now an old friend to most of us. I also wish to extend a welcome to Professor JShelley, who occupies a high public position, and who we know has always been sympathetic with, and deeply immersed in, the study of the arts. Professor Shelley is no narrow pedant. He is skilled in the dramatic, musical and pictorial arts, and I hope that he will often favour us with his presence in the Gallery. I will ask him now to open the show.” To Be Seen and Not Heard. Professor Shelley thanked Mr. Ewen ' for his kind words of recommendation, which he felt he would need, more and more as he continued in hi& present office. He was now concerned with what must be heard and not seen, while the art his hearers were concerned in was one that should be seen and not heard He congratulated the Academy upon the splendid conditions under which thev were holding tlieiw exhibition. It made all the difference. When he received plays or poems for criticism he liked to see them beautifully typed and handsomely bound. If some of the gems of English poetry were handed in iU-written on scraps of paper how many of them would go unrecognised? “After only a cursory glance round I congratulate the society—the dressing fits them,” he continued. “To the society I would say don’t be timid at hanging your pictures alongside those of Mr. Birch. It is a severe test, I know, but I think they stand up to the test remarkably well. I might have to revise that a little here and there, but not much. Looking round the walls of any exhibition of New Zealand art one might conclude how very few human beings there are in this country. There might be occasions where people have sat and allowed others to paint them, but the prophets would probably wonder if anyone in New Zealand was doing any work. I have only been in Wellington a short time, and am not yet very familiar with Wellington life. All i know of it is that there are roads, with a steep fall on one side and a high bank on the other on to which houses hang by their claws. I know, because I happen to live in one of them. Yet in my drives around Wellington’s various by-paths—which I suppose are really main roads —the configuration of the place is unique and modernistic. Anyone with a camera or a pair of eyes, by taking a shilling taxi ride can see modernistic landscapes ready made. Raising the Standard. “As to the quality of the works here, I agree with your president that they show a remarkably high standard. What New Zealand needs, all will agree, is the establishment of standards, and we will have to screw ourselves into refusing the works, even of regular exhibitors if they do not come up to the desired standard. We cannot do culture in New Zealand better service. Another way in which that can be accomplished is to endeavour to induce ether artists of standing to visit New Zealand. Mr. Birch has shown us what New Zealand looks like to English eyes in some delightful examples, and we hope that the delight he expresses on his canvases he will feel in his heart when he gets back to England. “After all what is art —what is its purpose?” asked Professor Shelley. “I know some people think it as something for the decoration of the walls of their drawing or dining-rooms; but going further is it not the representation or rather the interpretation of the reality of what is round about us, or what'they wish to be round about us? Or is it an attempt to depict that to which so many of us are blind?”

Professor Shelley said that much In life depended on how much ..one made of the twenty-four hours of the day. One might live only one hour and merely exist for the other twenty-three. Tbjs art business was a serious one, and they should be grateful and thankful for those sensitive artists of vision who were seen and not heard.