CAMERAWORK

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 95, 19 October 1937, Page 4

CAMERAWORK

THE LONDON SALON

THREE N.Z. EXHIBITORS

(From "The Post's" Representative * LONDON, September 15.

Three New Zealanders represent th« Dominion at the' International Exhibition of the London Salon of Photography, opened this week. They are Messrs. H. Tornquist, H. J. Schmidt, and N. R. Lewers. Out of 4000-pictures submitted only 400 were selected, so considerable credit is reflected upon those whose work is hung. Twentysix countries are represented, including Japan, Canada, Australia, the United States, South Africa, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Belgium, India, and France. Two portraits of the King and one of the Queen are shown. One is Bertram Park's profile portrait of the King which is the basis of the new coinage.

| Each of the New Zealanders has one photograph accepted. Mr. Lewers has sent a particularly attractive portrait entitled "Challenge." It is-a study of a gentleman with the appearance of a tramp, or "swagger," but since the face alone is shown the profession of the subject can only be hazarded. This is unimportant, perhaps, but the beady, black eyes, and the hooked, battered nose, together with the set of the face,. relating physical and mental struggles, prompts a query as to the man's calling and the reason for that hard, deliberate stare. Mr, Lewers has made, shrewd use of lighting effect •

Another portrait has been sent by; Mr. Tornquist. "Starkie" is the title. It shows the hard-bitten features of a man with a'tinge of negroid blood, in his veins. There is a suggestion of brutality about the cast of the face, which, odd as it may seem, Is largely the attraction of the study. Mr. Schmidt has had accepted a photograph of adagio dancers, entitled "Grace, and Poise," taken, it is suggested, Awhile posing rather than in action. _ The exhibition is full of sensitive and skilful work carrying out the aim of the society "to exhibit only works in pictorial photography in which there is distinct evidence of personal artistic feeling and execution." The salon ia a curious body, holding a dinner and a meeting once a year, having no head* quarters, and only a skeleton organisa* tion. Most of the prints are for. sale, prices running from £1 to £20, the latter being as much as-one'call'get nowadays for a first-class etching.