SUPPORT OF ART

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 33, 8 February 1930, Page 11

SUPPORT OF ART

UNDERSTANDING PURCHASERS

"Artists cannot live on air, and unless you have purchasers, Art cannot flourish," said the Hon. T. S. Weston, M.L.C., iv opening at the Art Gallery last night the display of; British pictures collected'by Mr. E. Murray Fuller. "You want not only purchasers, but understanding purchasers, and in assisting to create understanding purchasers, Mr. Murray Puller has played a very considerable part in this city and throughout the Dominion. He has one great advantage as a 1 dealer, that he is an artist himself, and understands the necessity for good drawing, and that colouring must not be allowed to cover up mistakes. But for his bad luck in connection with the Manuka, 1 think we would have had «n exhibition here to-night which would have been almost as good as that which Mr. Bailey brought out here nearly twenty years ago now, ■ and which marked such au epoch/in the progress of art in New Zealand. In spite of that bad luck, this was a very fine collection, and it was to be hoped that some rich lovers of art could be found to play tho part of n Maecenas or a Lorenzo de° Medici and purchase sonic of the pictures and present them to the future Dominion Art Gallery." - Mr. "Wcstou heartily congratulated the Wanganui Art Gallery upon having already acquired two or three of the gems of the collection, and upon having entrusted tho choice of their purchases to Mr. Hay Campbell, who was a good artist and knew a good picture. He thought that Mr. Campbell had bought for the Wanganui gallery three pictures that they would treasure in the future. Mr. Weston later announced that Mr. D. A. Ewen", barely beating by a head two or three other would-be purchasers, had bought Sir William Orpen"'s dainty, yet powerful, sketch, "Tho Breeze" (£GS), and had presented it to the Academy of Fine Arts; while tho council of the Academy had purchased for £105 the oil painting, "Silver and Blue, Pas do Calais," by Algernon TalLnage, R.A. Before tho evening was over, a number of othor. pictures— among them tho water colours, "Blakoney Marshes," and "Blakeney Church," by Gault Ackcrmann, X.1., and "Old Moutrieul, Lake of Geneva," by Ernest W. Haselhust, E.8.A., BJ. — bore the red seals which indicated thai they_ too had Jjocn Bold.