MODERN WOMEN.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 9 April 1927, Page 17

MODERN WOMEN.

AN ARTIST'S DISTASTE. Mies Ethel Walker, the eminent artist- and member cf the New English Art Club, who is now for the first time for several years holding an exhibition of her work in London, divides her year between Robin Hood’s Bay, where she has a bungalow, and lives happily studying the sea .in all its aspects, and her home in Chelsea overlooking the Thames not far from the house 'in Oheyne Walk, where Turner spent his last years. It was at her Chelsea studio* that a “Manchester Guardian”, representative found her recently, rather worn out after the rush of completing in a few hours for the exhibition a decorative study which had suffered some mischance on a previous occasion, and had to be finished again. Discussing her work as a portrait painter, she explained that, while she was often described as an impressionist she made her portraits as exactly like the sitters- a® -she possibly could. “I draw them out very carefully before J paint, and I think the drawing « the most important part. I do- not see hov.you can go wrong if you can draw. •She left the choice of costume very much to the ,sitter, and thought women generally had a very good sense of colour, but when she was asked what she thought of pre-snt-day dress, she became eloquent in her disapproval. One eould understand her feeling: when she showed a photograph of the second, picture she had ever exhibited, a portrait of a voimg girl in a long, grace-fully-flowing frock, standing looking into the fire. One saw the back of a shapely head, and the shilling hair coiled low on the neck. “I am getting a little tired of the chemise frock,’’ said Miss Walker. Long dresses are so much more- cheerful. And I do dislike- a head that is bobbed or shingle-d. I don’t want to paint a shingled head. T hate _ them.. Most shingled women look like “sights.’ Dark girls who shingle look like early Victorian pen- wipers. Long hair is lovely. It gives grace and dignity, and lets one -see the shape of the head. Shingled or bobbed heads have no shape and all look alike. The Russians know how beautiful long hair is. How beautiful the Ohauve Souris, ladies were in that lovely Russian picnic, incomparable women with lovely shining hair, looking so fascinating. “1 am tired too. of flesh-coloured legs. I never want to look at girls nowadays, for I know without looking what they are like; all the same, the same shingled heads, the same hats, the same coats, and the same, fiesli-co-l-oured legs. And J don’t want to -see their legs. So few people have -straight legs. Most of them, are crooked, or bandy, or knock-kneed, or like champagne bottles. Yes, I know they pay much more attention to their stockings and slices than they used to do. but why -will they persist in -wearing high heels. They spoil their legs- and make their feet- look like the hooves of rheumaticky ponies. I like law heels or no heels at all. The most beautiful person who ever walked on the stage had the loveliest feet. She always had her -shoes made expressly for her, and they had never the vistige of a heel. That wa«, Mile. Dorziad, who came over here with Mile. Regnier. I wish pur girls -would take to sandals or very low heels.”