CHILDREN'S ART

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 2, 2 July 1938, Page 11

CHILDREN'S ART

EXHIBITION OPENED

WIDE INTEREST TAKEN

A wide interest was taken in last evening's opening of the exhibition of children's art which has been arranged in the National Art- Gallery. Mr. D. A. Ewen presided and welcomed the Minister of Education (the Hon. P. Fraser), who was present to open the exhibition.

Mr. Ewen remarked' that he was pleased that the Minister had found time to forsake for an hour or two the discord of words for the harmony of colour. The exhibition, he said, was one which would interest everyone, whether parent, teacher, or child. It was one of the most important exhibitions that had ever been held, and later on there would be an addition to it in the shape of children's art from the United States. The complete exhibition would, as far as possible, be subsequently shown in other centres in the Dominion. Mr. Ewen paid special tribute to the work of the sub-commit-tee responsible for arranging the exhibition and, in particular, to Mr. R. Hipkins, who had spent a full fortnight on the job.

The Minister, when declaring the exhibition open, said that the pictures did more than' speak for themselves. He was overwhelmed when he entered the gallery, for he seemed to have come into a garden where the spirits of children had burst into flower. The promoters of the exhibition and all concerned with it had done a noble work, and the Academy in all the years of its existence had probably never done anything of greater value. The exhibition was a foretaste of what would arise from freedom in education: it betokened a rebirth of art in this country. With an extension of leisure time, which was bound to come in this age of machinery, and with a teaching of the people how rightly to use leisure, one could foresee a return to the time of the Middle Ages when work was loved for its own sake, when in work the soul found expression, resulting in those glorious buildings and other works of art of which we were so proud. This exhibition opened up a wonderful vista of what was to come in the future.