EXHIBITION WORK

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20142, 11 January 1940, Page 11

EXHIBITION WORK

AMERICAN DESIGNER YEAR IN THE DOMINION MR. S. W. NELSON LEAVES After a year’s stay in New Zealand, Mr. Stanley W. Nelson, the American expert engaged by the Government to supervise the preparation of displays for its court at the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition, left Auckland by the Mariposa on his way back to Los Angeles. ■Mr. Nelson, who is a specialist In industrial design, was concerned more particularly with the co-ordinated display describing land utilisation in the Dominion. This had been carried out in co-operation with officers of the State departments concerned, including Lands and Survey, Agriculture, Forestry, Scientific and Industrial Research and Public Works. The display makes comparatively little use of conventional exhibits, but consists almost wholly of dioramas and photo murals of different sizes, with carefully prepared short explanatory inscriptions, giving _ the visitor connected information in a readily assimilable form. The display as a whole is something new- to this country in exhibition technique, and the method, no doubt, will be widely used in future. “One of the things that impressed me most,” Mr. Nelson said, "is what I may call the 18th century calm of the average New Zealander. I do not mean to suggest that he or she is in any way behind the times —the country : s most modern in material things.* What I mean is that your people seem to have retained some of the best qualities of several generations ago.”