ART PUBLICATIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20722, 15 November 1930, Page 8 (Supplement)

ART PUBLICATIONS.

G. W. LAMBERT AGAIN. A dozen more works by the late George W. Lambert, A.11.A., figure in the October-November issue of Art in Australia. There 'is also an article upon the memorial exhibition in Sydney of the unsold works left in the possession of his widow. In spite of the financial depression, sales reached over £6OOO in total. The trustees of the National Gallery of New South Wales purchased several of the largest paintings, including " Important Peoplo," ono of Lambert's bestknown works, representing a coster girl, a naked babe, a boxer and a top-hatted magnate, all grouped in the open air. Further paintings and drawings were acquired for the National Gallery with the proceeds of the Lambert Memorial Fund. The magazine also contains an article on the cutting and printing of woodblocks, by A! argil ret Preston, the leading Australian exponent of this fascinating branch of art. Space is given to a short account of the. Victorian National Gallery School, conducted sinco .1892 by its present revered director, Mr. L. Bernard Hall. A list of the more distinguished ex-pupils is almost a directory of the best-known Australian artists to-day, some of the front-rank landscape painters excepted. 'I he. illustrations, eight of them in colour, are, as usual, excellent. The latest number of Art in New Zealand is devoted very largely to the career and work of Pelro Van dor Velden, the Dutch painter, who came to New Zealand from his homeland in 1890 and worked for the noxt two decades in Christchurch, dying in Auckland in 19.13. Van dor Velden is known to Aucklnnders by his highly imaginative study of a mountain (orient, " Otira Gorgo," in the city gallery. Much of his earlier work belonged to the school of Josef Israels and the brothers Maris, but in New Zealand ho followed his- own bent, deriving inspiration from many sources. The illustrations in the number show well the scope of his art, and Mr. L. 11. Booth, who knew him well during his Christchurch sojourn, provides an entertaining article upon this gifted, if eccentric, painter, around whoso memory a swarm of amusing stories has gathered. Other contents includo a pood account of repertory drama in New Zealand, by Marjory Nicholls, and an article upon a recent New Zealand literary invasion of London, by John Dene. K. M. Ballantyno spins some novel and scarcely credible theories of symbolic and geometric principles underlying Maori art.