THE LATE MRS. GILBERT MAIR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9195, 9 May 1893, Page 5

THE LATE MRS. GILBERT MAIR.

This New Zealand Times, in its notice of the death of Mrs. GUborb Mair (Miss Kate Sperrey), gives the following particulars i— "Her lingering and painful illness Was borne with a courage and endurance rare in a delicate and fragile constitution such an characterised the accomplished and gentlesouled lady too soon taken away. Only thoso who knew her intimately can understand the attractiveness of her nature, its simplicity, and her courage under long and sovere physical suffering. The loss by her demise to the art of the colony is great. Not only did she possess superior ability as a painter, bub as a sculptor she exhibited a power which, had she been spared, would have made a name for her in that department of art, as witness tho terra cotta bust of her father, a life like portraiture moulded shortly after his death a few years ago. While bub a young girl Miss Sperrey displayed a remarkable capacity for art. In colour, form and taste for natural scenery, represented in landscape and foliage, together with effective evidence of ability in figure-painting, she early showed the dawn of a talent which future study under celebrated masters in Italy and Pans developed in a marked degree. An early portrait of her young child-brother painted when she was only about 16, and a bush scene in water colours, with ferns and brushwood surrounding a bird's nest, painted about a year later, was remarkably true to nature. Subsequently, after her Roman and Parisian experience, on her retnrn to New Zealand, she painted numerous portraits of celebrated colonists, including the late Sir William Fitzherbert, Mr. James MoAndrew, of Dunedin (which was subscribed for by the people of Dunedin), Sir George Grey, Sir Harry Atkinson, the Hon. John Ballance, and various other prominent personages, besides numerous studies of Natives and native scenery. Among hor productions was an Italian goatherd, taken from life, which in form, colour, and effect in detail, is considered her masterpiece. Mrs. Matr leaves two beautiful children, a boy and a girl, aged respectively four and two years, portraits of both of whom, in one group, were recently painted by their now departed mother.