NEW ZEALAND ART

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 109, 9 May 1923, Page 9

NEW ZEALAND ART

A NATIONAL GALLERY,

TO IHJ BDITOB.

Sir,—At the opening of tha sketch exhibition. Mr. Shailer "Weston made another plea for the War Memorial to take the form of a National Art Gallery. It is a reproach to Wellington that four years have passed and we are still merely suggesting, but tha reason why people have not taken quicker to the art gallery idea., is,- I think, that they do not think ahead enough. They want to think in centuries, not years. If soldiers and civilians would contrive to put up a really fine building, it will be the foundation stone of a monument that will Jast so long as New Zealand exists, and there is nothing that will appeal to future generations co much. True art is never out of date, and the better it becomes, the more a part of the national life it will be, and every picture added will be another stone in the deathless monument. " . _

The ideal way would be to combine the arts of music, painting, and sculpture Tinder one roof, hy buildinjj part of it as a proaerly constructed concert room to hold about 500. people, built on the plan of a theatre, not a dancing hall. Combining the arts to this extent would have far-reaching possibilities. We are a young country now. and what the future holds for New Zealand in music, paintins. sculpture, and literature remains to be seen. To start the nucleus of a National New Zealand Art would be a lasting and magnificent tribute.

Mr. Gummage, the Auckland arohitect, has executed a wonderful war memorial bronze statue, originally, I believe, intended for the Auckland Grammer School, but the school council, with (one can suppose) the idea of a fully clothed, conventional soldier, holding the •usual "im (like the bee in the honey to show it's Teally honey), refused this exquisite work of art. It is a beautiful nude figure of a youth standing on the •world. Every line of the virile ifjgvae expresses the splendour of the sacrifice, giving gloriously, yet reaching up as if to wrench from Eternity the good for mankind for which oonsciously or unconsciously every soldier gave his life. It would be hard to imagine a more fitting memorial than this beautiful work of art by a New Zealander, at the entrance to an art gallery and concert :hamber, the whole in memory of the deathless ones of New Zsaland.—l am, etc.,

ANZAC DAY.

9th May.