BLACK-AND-WHITE ART

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22193, 21 August 1935, Page 16

BLACK-AND-WHITE ART

SOCIETY'S EXHIBITION GOOD LOCAL WORK SHOWN MANY DIFFICULT MEDIA An exhibition of black-and-white work bv members of the Auckland Society of Arts, including drawings, etchings, lino-cuts, woodcuts, and block-prints, was opened in the society s clubrootns, Victoria Arcade, at a luncheon gathering yesterday. The president, Mr. C. It. Ford, welcomed Sir Herbert Matthews, of Loudon, a member of the committee of the Empire Art Society, which recently held in the Imperial Institute an exhibition ii which work from Auckland was shown. Mr. Ford then presented to the winners thre-j trophies lately awarded by the society for the current year. These were the Bledisloe Landscape Medal, to Mr. John Weeks, the Kohn Medal, for art-crafts, to Miss Olive Jones for a fine collection of pottery, and the medal for the best print in the recent photographic exhibition, to Mr. E. C. Lackland Aim o 1 Graphic Art In the course of a talk on black-and-white, Mr. Arnold Goodwin said that in trying to appreciate the graphic arts it was difficult for the man in the street to understand what he was looking for and where real merit lay. Black-and-white was concerned purely with form, and its aim should not be side-tracked by attempts to convey colour by drawing. This was a defect of much black-and-white work, even of a good deal that was ranked as great. It was particularly necessary that in a young country like New Zealand attention should be given to the art which expressed itself in pure form. In black-and-white, form could give an aesthetic satisfaction which had nothing to do with the representative or reproductive aspect of a particular work. He was not referring to pattern, but to form, shapn, balance and rhythm produced by the juxtaposition of lines and tones. The whole basis of black-and-white was an underlying sense of shape. Among a given number of people this would be more rarely found than the sense ol colour and more rarely still than musical sense. Steady Progress Shown The exhibition contains about 60 examples in a number of different media, ard fairly represents the steady progress that is being made by Auckland artists in this field, and especially by some of the younger people, including present and past students of the Elam Scliool, the sound influence of which is easily seen. Conspicuous are seven fine portrait beads in coloured chalk by A. Barns Graham, who has already established a high reputation for work of this kind. There are also heads in pencil and chalk by A. C. Hipwell, U. L. Moller, B. Fenton, W. Jones and A. Garmonswav, and a figuro study in chalk by A. C. Hipwell. Lino-cutting has a strong appeal to a number of workers, who have produced prints of all kinds of subjects, including Biblical incidents, old cottages, farm scenes and little decorative fancies. Most are high-spirited and show real joy in the task. Among the contributors are Bessie Christie, who exhibits some large prints, B. Hazlewood, Vernon H. Brown, May O. Gilbert and Ida G. Eise. Four large etchings by A. Thompson show a considerable advance and are more ambitious than any local work the society has exhibited for some time. Two represent vessels on the slip, with figures of workmen in the foreground, and the others buildings and scalfold- | ing. Etchings are shown also by 13. ( Donovan and B. Jackson, aquatints and | a lithograph by Alice F. Whyte, and I woodcuts by D. Vallance Young and j A. C. Hipwell. A note of colour is proj vided by John Weeks with four vigorj ous little chalk and wash drawings of ! old Continental towns.