LIBERATION OF ART

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 23, 21 October 1944, Page 8

LIBERATION OF ART

Significance Of Europe’s Reconquest LAST 12 MONTHS’ EVENTS The significance to the artistic world of the advances of the Allied urmies in Hie last 12 months was pointed out by tlie Governor-General, Sir Cyril Newull, when declaring open last night the annual exhibition of the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts. Since the previous exhibition, he remarked, those two cradles of the arts, Athens and Rome, had been freed from the Hun vandals, as bad Paris, Brussels and a great part, of Holland. , Willi the freeing of those places came the freeing of some of the most precious art treasures of the world, said, bis Excellency. About 10 days ago he aud Lady Newall had heard from a friend iu London, who was interested in all the arts and who was a member of a very powerful organization preparing in England at present to go to tlie freed countries and search for art treasures and restore them. .Such works of art as the organization had in mind belonged to the whole world. Every really notable object was known to the experts, and each one that had not been destroyed or carried oil by vandals would, it was hoped, be restored to its pre-war position and would be available for all people’s enjoyment.

His Excellency reminded the members of the academy that they were fortunate to be holding an exhibition. “Undgr. different circumstances this exhibition might have been a very different gathering,” he said. “There might have been n good deal of rice paper on the walls.” Il was because of what the fighting men of the United States of America had done that they were able to bold the exhibition. lie hoped that before the next exhibition was opened the war would be over, aud he congratulated the organization on the manner in which it bad carried on during the war. The exhibition was full of interest and the artists were to be congratulated on their work. Out of 239 exhibits only seven were not pictures. There were three exhibits of pottery, one of woodcarving, one of petit point, and two of embroidery. Art was not pictures only, aud he hoped that next year the very talented people iu the Dominion who were interested in the other arts would make a worthy contribution to the exhibition. His Excellency finally said he hoped that well-wishers of the arts in the Dominion would show their enthusiasm in a practical way so that there would be good sales. The president, Mr. G. G. G. Watson, introducing their Excellencies, said the interest they had shown iu cultural .pursuits since their arrival in New Zealand was appreciated. They had been attending the opening of the annual exhibitions since the dark days of the war. It was fitting that there should be present also a representative of that great sister nation whose sons were fighting alongside New Zealand’s and Io which New Zealand owed so much, Mr. K. Patton, United States Minister iu New Zealand, aud Mrs. Patton. He welcomed Mrs. Patton specially as an artist of no mean ability. The work in the exhibition was representative of New Zealand art,of the day, said Mr. Watson. He drew particular attention to ten pictures by A. Austen Deans, the brilliant New Zealand artist, who went overseas with the First Echelon and after fighting iu Greece and Crete was taken prisoner, but found scope for his palette and brush in the coniines of a prison camp. His pictures were worthy of all praise. The exhibition, which is the fifty-sixth, is being held in the temporary gallery in the D.I.C. Building.