ART IN NEW ZEALAND

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 49, 27 February 1937, Page 8

ART IN NEW ZEALAND

MISS BUTLER'S WORK

(To the Editor.) Sir, —The question is often asked in this country why Rhodes Scholars do not return to New Zealand after they | have completed their University courses in England. I think that if one wanted to get the real answer to this problem he could not do better than apply to Miss Margaret Butler, the talented New Zealand sculptor born in and now resident in Wellington. I have been waiting for those who know more about art and especially sculpture to take up the matter raised by Mrs. E. Connors and by "Art Lover," as I feel satisfied that with the limited knowledge at my command I cannot do justice to my task. It must be about three years since Miss Butler returned to this, her native land, and gave an exhibition of her work. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of sculpture and especially if he has seen sculpture in the older lands as I have done must have been impressed with the fact that at last New Zealand has produced a real sculptress. And yet what do we find? At the National Art Gallery there is a hall of sculpture and Miss Butler's work is represented by one piece—an immature one executed before she left New Zealand to study—presented by a former president of the academy, the late Mr. T. Shailer Weston. I have recently been making inquiries from those in a position to advise me and I understand that when Miss Butler's exhibition. took place the academy was short of funds and it did not purchase any of her work. Yet shortly afterwards Mrs. Murray Fuller arrived with a collection of paintings by English artists (and they were none the better and none the worse for that) and the then academy, desiring to purchase a painting from this collection, circularised those interested to raise a sum of over £300. I believe that Miss Butler's most highly-priced pieces cost about £100. In the face of these facts and of the appreciation by M. Thebault Sissons, the great Parisian art critic as translated by "Art Lover," Miss Butler has a real talent for sculpture. She is gifted, very gifted ... she analyses with penetration all the types of the human species that she portrays. In the face of these facts I say that the public of New Zealand especially of Wellington are entitled to some explanation from the Board of Trustees of the National Art Gallery why an effort has not been made to purchase some oi her works for exhibition in our Gallery Everyone recognises that art is international, but when we paid our subscriptions towards, the Gallery and Museum we did not think that our own country's artists would be the last to receive recognition. >~-.. . Another matter upon which the public are entitled to some explanation is | the reason for the. absence of her sculpture from the works of art to be sent to London for the Royal Institute Galleries during the Coronation period. Here is a lady who obtained her early art education in thi3 country who later went abroad and received tuition at the hands of eminent sculptors in Europe, whose work was exhibited every year for eight or nine years at the leading salons m Paris (no mean achievement), and also later at the Royal Academy in London, which work received most favourable notices from many of the best art critics in Paris, was approved by such j great sculptors as Bourdelle, Despiau, and Drivier, and reproduced photographically in such papers as. "L'Art _et.| les Artistes," "la Comoedia," "la Pemture," and in the salon catalogues. Surely in such circumstances one is entitled to. expect that at least one piece of Miss Butler's work would have been selected by those in whom the trust of the public is imposed to choose representative works of New Zealand artists for exhibition in London at a time when probably more visitors will be there' than on any previous occasion.. This matter cannot be allowed to rest where it is, and if the selection committee does not j make some explanation of the matter, 1 propose to write to Viscount Bledisloe, our late Governor-General, to ascertain if possible whether statuary was included (specifically or otherwise) in or excluded from the works to be sent to London.

In the course of a long life 1 have been interested in many matters, but never in one which is so baffling and apparently devoid of any kind of satisfactory explanation. : I : could understand if the committee selected works concerning which there was doubt as to their merit, but to treat an artist like Miss Butler as if she did not exist is incomprehensible.

It would be very interesting and instructive if the Board of Trustees of the gallery" and/or .of the selection committee for the London exhibition would state for the information of the public and for the guidance of future aspiring artists • the height, to which New Zealand-born sculptors must rise or, the honours which they must obtain before their work can be accepted for our instruction and pleasure. Is it any wonder that talented New Zealand architects, scientists, etc., are leaving this country and seeking recognition in other lands? —I am, etc.,

PERPLEXED,