AUSTRALIAN GIRLS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 104, 30 October 1923, Page 9

AUSTRALIAN GIRLS

Following the storm of criticism whicH has centred round Norman Lindsay's pictures now on exhibition in London one of the Sydney papers spoke of them facetiously as " rude nudes "—comes tha judgment of James Ashton, one of Australia's most distinguished artists, on. the Australian girls. To the Adelaido girls he gives pride of place as being tha most beautiful of the girls of all tha Australian cities. His rhapsody is evoked, not only by their beauty, but also by their grace. Melbourne girls he says, while they might be " the welldressed people of the Commonwealth.", are " careless in make-up and fretful in. gait-'f Enter the Sydney girl! Jameg Ashton sees in her no redeeming graces' apparently. She throws her clothes on." Obsessed with the latest sensations anl the spirit of rush, she adorns her faca in a hurry, and much of her amusement amounts simply to exhaustion. The Perth girls,' he says, are not so giddy "in their facial gymnastics," but still they cannot compare with the Adelaide girls, whose manner is so serene, whoso gait is so good, and whose character shines in faces which are not defiled with; paint and powder. The Brisbane and Hobart girls he leaves out of his calcuL. ations. Like the violet, they blush urn*, seen by this, artistic critic, ■