BRITISH ART

Evening Star, Issue 19892, 14 June 1928, Page 3

BRITISH ART

m E. MURRAY'S EXHIBITION “Everything is commercialised in greater or less degree nowadays, and I am here to sell,” said Mr E. Murray Fuller to a ‘Star’ reporter just prior to the private view of his exhibition of contemporary British art at the Early Settlers’ Hall this afternoon, “but 1 am really trying at the same time to promote interest in art amongst my fellow-countrymen of New Zealand-” This frank statement may bo accepted. Mr Fuller is one of our own —a Wellington man, who is known as a lover of art for art’s sake, and the collection of pictures, etchings, etc., which ho has brought to our city is not to bo regarded as a pleasure to the eye, but, as one of our foremost art patrons has remarked, a message of goodwill sent to us by many eminent painters at Homo who are interested in fostering the progress of the graphic arts in our young dominion. Amongst them are threo New Zealanders—Sydney Thompson, Eleanor Hughes, and Frances Hodgkins—all one-time students of our art schools, but now exiled by the exigencies of their profession. To renew our acquaintance with the work of native-born artists and to compare theirs with the works of England’s best, adds a. delightful note of interrogation to this exhibition. This was ono of tho thoughts conveyed in the remarks with which Mr John Loudon, president of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery Society, opened the private view to-day. The pictures are by living painters. Everybody cannot buy “tho old masters” —they are too expensive and they are tightly held. The artists of to-day are “ tho old masters” of to-morrow, and to them we must look if the world has to have any hope in art. The collection consists of 234 exhibits, the water colours about twice as numerous as the oils. Tn bis tour of Europe to acquire such works as would specially interest New Zealanders the collector had the help of Sir 'William Orpcn, Sir Herbert Hush Stanton. and Mr S. J. Lamorna Birch. Only ono exhibition of this collection has preceded the exhibition in Dunedin. Mr Fuller showed it at Wrellington, and there tho sale included two important pictures, one hy Harold Speed, the other by Annesley Brown. The exhibition is to be open from 10 n.m. till 5.30 each day up to the 2Sth inst., aijd on Tuesday and Friday evenings. No group of pictures comparable to this has been see in Dunedin for a while. Tt should prove an unimpeachable source from which to reinforce the treasures of private-collectors ami the art galleries of the dominion.