THE ART EXHIBITION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19960, 31 May 1928, Page 14

THE ART EXHIBITION.

WATER COLOUR SECTION. NOVEL ENGLISH PICTURES. NEW ZEALANDERS ABROAD. Save for one painter's work, the watercolours in the Auckland Society of Arts exhibition offer few surprises. Neither local artists nor most of those who have sent pictures from overseas appear to find this medium a happy one for trying new or unorthodox methods. The exception is a group of four studies bv Frances Hodgkins, a Now Zealander who has been for a considerable time in England. All above the average in size, these are calculated to give even the hardened onlooker a shock. The average man, holding the old-fashioned belief that art and beauty must go together, will probably laugh or turn away disappointed. One picture seems to represent three little girls sitting upon a grassy bank, but there is some doubt about the matter, for their faces are left mostly to the imagination, one being a blank and the others very short of features. The legs of two defyall the laws of nature. A similar lack of eyes and noses marks a row of ladies in another picture. In a third, said to represent a Venetian scene, the houses lean at various angles. The fourth shows a threshing-plant hard at work. In this the artist has used black and blue crayon to create a wild jumble of wavy lines criss-crossing with little apparent method. New Zealanders in Trance. However, some of those who come to scoff will remain to make allowances. Viewed from as far off as the room will allow, all the pictures show a fine coloursense and a real command of composition. Much of the seeming disorder clears itself away, and it is possible to see what the artist is driving at. She has something to convey, and the message is not wholly in cypher. It is safe to say, though, that she will have no imitators in New Zealand. To mention other work from abroad, three painters formerly of Christcliurch, Rhona Haszard, Ronald McKenzie and Leslie Greener, send some pleasant little pieces of Breton seacoast, with buildings and boats. All are unaffected and show a sincere effort to present the scene with an economy of form and colour. Mr. McKenzie's two pictures, indeed, shownone of the original methods upon which ho had embarked before leaving New Zealand, and of which his "Craigieburn Ranges," in the Auckland City Gallery, is a good example. Mr. Greener attempts to depict little sea-waves breaking in a cove, in semi-diagrammatic fashion, with some success. H. Nevill-Smith las two Australian scenes, one on the Hawkesbury River and the other a seascape, marked by belts of dark, rich colour which ho used with singular confidence. It would be interesting to see this method further developed. Also from Australia are a green riverpastoral and a study of a yellow caravan by Cedric Savage. The same painter is not so happy in depicting a stretch of harbour, which he makes an incredible blue. It is a pity that A. F. Nicoll has sent only one water-colour, a thumb-nail impression of the esplanade at. Timaru, a little piece of quaintness done for the artist's own delight. Little Figure Work. The veteran president, of tho society, Mr. A. S. Boyd, contributes "On the Majorcan Coast," with sea and olive trees. An old gnarled olive and a peasant girl appear in "Crabbed Ago and Youth." Russell Clark deserves credit for an excellent outdoor sketch of a girl in a green dress and a multi-coloured scarf. This is the only figure study among the watercolours, Mr. Boyd's peasant girl and a head of a Maori woman by C. Hay Campbell alone excepted. It is typical of what many New Zealand workers in the med um might do if they would take the pains. Mr. Clark shows his draughtsmanship again in "The Top of the Dome," a glimpse of a partly snowclad peak, which makes another alpine picture on the same wall look quite unworthy of notice. Among Auckland painters, A. J. Brown has nothing so ambitious as his large picture of last year. The two pictures he sends give the impression that he is feeling his way. There is a tinge of yellow light in nil the work of Hilda Wiseman, but the effect is almost uniformly pleasant. Ella Spicer has a rather large study of a bay, with grassy hills and trees, but the treatment hardly accords with the size of the work. There are many flower-studies by Alice F. Whyte. Dorothy Ashton, Adele Younghusbarid and Joan Chapman Taylor are also represented. The etchings form a small group, and most of the work is slight, with the exception of a spirited littlo plate of a theatre entrance at night, by H. Linley Richardson, and three tattooed Maori heads, painstakingly done by R. F. Way. Trevor Lloyd, Connie Lloyd and A. Rae are the other contributors. Gerald E. Jones carries off tho Honours of the photographic section, with eight brombil prints. The range of subjects is remarkable, and tho treatment is invariably poetic. Gwen Fullerton shows two delightful child studies, and Una Garlick several heads of Maori women. Colour-caricatures by "Vyv," sumptuous hand-painted china by Leah 0. Hayne, and many-coloured Batik work by Ida H. Carey and Dorothy Ashton are »also exhibited. No list would be complete without mention of an ultra-grotesque idol made by R. O. Gross for the Little Theatre Society's production of "If," and. shown by permission of the society. Sculpture is not otherwise represented in the exhibition. ■ The art union in connection with the exhibition will be drawn on Saturday evening next. The attendances are good and several pictures have already been sold.