MURRAY FULLER’S PICTURES

Evening Star, Issue 21078, 15 April 1932, Page 10

MURRAY FULLER’S PICTURES

PRIVATE VIEW TO-DAY Four years ago Mr E. Murray Fuller brought to New Zealand a collection of paintings that has been talked about ever since. Influenced by the success of that tour, Mr Fuller is back again with 222 pictures and a selection of etchings that it has taken two years to collect. His reputation as a collector has evoked considerable interest in the present visit. For the past month the people in Dunedin have been looking forward to it as to a treat in art, so it was no surprise to find a large and representative attendance at the Pioneers’ Hall this afternoon for the private view and the opening address by Sir Lindo Ferguson. The collection will be open to the public to-morrow. During his two and a-half years in Europe Mr Murray Fuller devoted his whole time to a survey of modern art, in France, in Italy, in Belgium, and especially in England. He has been honoured by the esteem and encouragement of leading English painters. The late Sir William Orpen became his close friend, and to Orpen’s guidance and ever-generous help he owes much. He has controlled valuable representative collections which he exhibited successfully in South Africa, at Cape Town and in Johannesburg, While in England he held two striking exhibitions of modern art in Liverpool and in Manchester. This unusual experience for a New Zealander has born© fruit in the discrimination with which the present exhibition has been selected, arid the wide scope of the exhibits. Almost all of the more significant English artists, whether members of the Royal Academy or other institutions such as the New English Art Club and the London Group, are well represented. Each picture is an example of the best work of our contemporary artists. Those remarks, by Colonel A. D. Carbery, vice-president of the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, justify high expectations with regard to the collection, and the first impressions, gathered on a walk round the two chambers of the Pioneer Hall, fully satisfy the hope that this collection would be truly representative of the best in the art of to-day. That is a bold statement, for critics seem to be agreed that we live in one of the most glorious periods of English painting; but upon consideration there is no need to qualify it. f The oils number 112. Sir William Orpen, greatest of English modern portrait painters, who died not long ago, is represented by a war picture that is almost painful in its realism and by a self portrait (of date 1929) that was hung in the National Gallery. Arnesby Brown is the painter of a very lovely landscape that is in perfect harmony. Philip Connard’s ‘ Guitar ’ is a company picture in strong colour. James Durden is drawn upon for ,a delightful interior study, the room flooded with the borrowed light that some painters can only try to get. Sydney Thompson, a New Zealander, has a dozen examples that deserve close inspection. W. E. Webster’s ‘ Caprice ’ is a nude of the gentlest and chastest type. Algernon Talmage has half a dozen, of which ‘ A Suffolk Hayfield ’ is perhaps the finest, the mist effects a feature. These are merely a few of the outstanding gems.

The water-colours number 110. Here, again, quality is found everywhere. S. J. Lamarna Birch has several examples of how he can paint water. W. Russell Flint’s ‘ Linen Carriers,’ though quite simple, is a beautiful picture, and ‘ The Piazetta of Venice ’ is wonderful in its treatment of _ reflected light. Dame Laura Knight’s principal contributions are in the oils section, but her No. 185 in the lighter medium is certainly very clever. Frank Brangwyn is known and appreciated the world over, and his ‘ Church at Cahors ’ will not lessen the number of his admirers. It is agreed that water-colour painting has been brought to a high plane of craftsmanship by the British artists of the present generation, and in that section the present collection is very strong all round.