ART OF NUGENT WELCH

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 47, 19 November 1941, Page 3

ART OF NUGENT WELCH

Nugent Welch, with his clean line and fresh colours, and his propensity for painting those scenes where every prospect pleases, fills a comfortable, niche Ju the local artistic world. His little bits of coastline, his hayfieids, his margin ot meadow beneath an ocean of sky, and his rocky seashores are well known to all those who can tell an oil from a water colour. Only occasionally does he break away. • In his present show at McGregor Wright’s, ou Lambton Quay, Wellington, his one departure from the usual path is his “’Wild Berries’’ —just a study of a bunch of St. John’s wort and briar berries in a jar on a circular table, but it is exceptionally well done. His one oil is “The Straw Trio,” three brave, lullbreasted haystacks of circular formation, squatting on a flat field under an extremely beautiful and well-painted sky. This study, made near Turakina in the late autumn, is characteristic of the eouutrv. So is the water colour, “Stacks, Turakina,” a shot at the same scene with another medium. Mr. Welch knows Cook Strait in all its moods. He prefers the placid ones, such as “Pale-browed Evening,” a view of the calm waters o£ the Strait, with the distant coastline of Marlborough silhouetted against the sunset glow. Another painting of Cook Strait shows the surf surging between roclw in the foreground, and still another, from Oterabangu Bay, shows the brown plateau of Baring Head in the distance. “Komanga Bay/’ a fine painting with nicely-blended colour nuances, is a series of headlands jutting out into the ocean serene. The Nelson scenes, round about the Hotel Appleby, are also desirable bits of artistic colour.. Already some six or seven of the paintings have the red seal “sold” attached to their frames.