TWO ART MAGAZINES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20300, 6 July 1929, Page 8 (Supplement)

TWO ART MAGAZINES.

WORK OF WILL ASHTON. The latest number of that excellent quarterly, Art in Australia,. is devoted to the work of Will Ashton, who will now be known to many Auoklanders by his " Diggers' Creek, Kosciusko," and " Pont St. Marie, Paris." in tho recent exhibition. A dozen colour-plates and about twico as many monochomo reproductions givo an excellent idea of this painter's latest achievements in Europo and Australia. Ashton is a straightforward realist, whose technique earns the warm admiration of brother painters, who know, as tho layman cannot, tho difficulties ho encounters and overcomes in a way all his own. It is in this quarter and among lay folk who liko naturally beautiful scenes depicted in a virile way, that his pictures are, and will bo, most esteemed. They cannot bo said to abound in poetic or imaginativo feeling. but thero remains a genuine love of nature. Ashton respects his subjects too much to tako liberties with them or to follow tho dictates of ephemeral fashion in setting them on canvas. Tho June number of Art in New Zealand, unlike its Australian prototype, contains a wealth of diverse, artistic, and literary matter by many hands. The four pictures chosen for colour reproduction aro all by Duncdin artists—W. H. Allen, Mabel Ilill, T. 11. Jenkins, and W. A. Bollard. The most notable is a portrait by Mr. Jenkin, of tho veteran artist, Mr. A. It. O'Keefe, which may bo compared and contrasted with the self-portrait lately purchased for the Auckland public gallery. Dunedin work predominates iu the half-tone illustrations, I hough Homo pictures from tlio annual Canterbury exhibition aro also shown. Mr. W. 11. Allen, an artist lately from England, contributes some thoughtful " impressions " of New Zealand art.