ART SELECTION

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 31, 6 February 1940, Page 8

ART SELECTION

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —The committee of the National Art Gallery is to be congratulated on the inclusion of many important and very pleasing examples of British art within the collection of pictures now on view at the National Gallery. In j most respects the exhibition may cer- j tainly be considered worthy of the j event which we in this Dominion are J now celebrating. However, one often hears it deplored that in view of the heavy expense that must have been incurred in transporting such a large' collection to this country a more generally discriminating and even quality of excellence was not maintained throughout the selection made. The collection contains a decided sprinkling of pictures the inclusion of which certainly calls for some elucidation of the reason for their presence here, not only from an art point of view, but also from an educational ( one. By this, reference is made chiefly to the so-called "futuristic" examples on view and in drawing attention to this particular feature of the exhibition it| is still further to be very much regretted that the committee appointed for the purpose o£ selecting for purchase for the national collection worthy additions to that collection did not refrain from acquiring examples of what may be termed as amongst the more bizarre specimens of that class on exhibition. An indication that the writer of this letter is not alone in this contention can be adduced from expressions of surprise overheard by visitors to the gallery as also from within artistic (professional and otherwise) circles in this city. Representatives who came here on behalf of picture galleries established in other centres of the Dominion have left the mysterious, the grotesque, the experimental severely alone in preference for that which displays qualities -of solidly-appreciable excellence. The same policy is followed in most of the public galleries abroad and it can be definitely stated that no artist producing works of the nature under discussion has ever yet been elected a member of the British Royal Academy. This exhibition of pictures was recently described in the columns of your journal as an outstanding event of New Zealand's Centennial-year. And so it is. The opportunity seldom occurs for New Zealanders in their own land to view such an important and interesting collection as is now displayed in our midst and it should not be missed.—l am, etc..

MARK LEVY.