A NOTABLE PICTURE

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 71, 24 March 1926, Page 5

A NOTABLE PICTURE

"PASSING OF THE MAOEI." A talented painter, a good soldier, and a hero in his death, the late Mr. Horace Moore-Jones is to be properly commemorated.by the presentation to the Auckland Art Gallery of what he himself considered the best work of his brush (statea the "New Zealand Herald")The picture is a large one, representing a Maori woman of mature years and dignified bearing, dressed as for a ceremonial occasion. The artist intended it to .have a symbolic meaning, and named it "The Passing of the. Maori,.'^ It is to be hung in the civic part of the gallery, pending formal acceptance by the City Council. . Mr. Moore-Jones, who had had a New Zealand reputation as an artist for a number of years, left Auckland a year or two before the war and established himself in London.'Though approaching middle age, he enlisted in the English section of the N.Z.E.F., and served at Gallipoli as a sapper. There he made a notable series of water-colour landscapes, embracing the whole region around Anza'e • Cove. These paintings were widely exhibited, and were after,wards reproduced in colour. After the Armistice he returned to New Zealand and lost his life, in a fire in a hotel at Hamilton on 3rd April, 1922. He had reached a place of safety : when he bravely re-entered the burning building in order to assist some women boarders' whose lives were in danger. He was badly burned, and shortly afterwards succumbed to his injuries. The picture under notice belongs to the period of his stay in London. It represents, a member, of a company of entertainers which Maggie Papakura had organised and taken to England. For some years it hung in the High Commissioner's office, and attracted a great deal of attention. Recently, when the artist's affairs had been wound up, the members of the Moore-Jones family in Auckland jointly purchased it from his widow and have now prcsentel it to the city. The Maori woman stands with head thrown back, and hedds a. taiaha in her right handi She wears three mats, » korowai of ornamental flax, a second covered with kiwi feathers and bordered in black arid' white, and over all a cloak of red, black, white, and green feathers. , Her hair falls over her breast in two plaits, and a huia feather is fastened upon her head. A tiki hangs from her neck. Two green lizards are running over the ground at her feet, symbols of death, according to native tradition. An unfinished mat, forming the background, also indicates the passing of the old-time Maori, his arts and customs. The -'canvas measures 93in by 57ia, anc1 is therefore of an imposing size. The artist is represented in the gallery by three other pictures, an oil painting of a Maori woman, full length, entitled "Kiwi, daughter of Major Te Wheoro," a representation of the departure .of the Ninth South' African contingent, as seen from the slopes of Mount Eden, and a water colour of '' Murphy,'' a donkey well known at Auzac, and his master an Australian soldier, engaged in taking a wounded man down to the beach.