A Question of Taste.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXV, Issue 9747, 25 January 1908, Page 1

A Question of Taste.

(I'eh I'hess Association.) Wellington. January 24. Bernard Whitaker, bookseller, was charged at the .Magistrate's Court with selling the bone Hand, containing an indecent picture entitled '"Sleep." The defence was that the pictuie wa6 a work of art. After purchase of the magazine had been proved and counsel's address tot- the detence, the .Magistrate reserved' his decision. A feature of the prosecution of the lxx>kseiler Bernard \\ hittaker for selling a magazine with an alleged indecent picture in it was the appearance of .Mr Lindsay Bernard Hall in the witness-box for the defence. He is a director of the National Gallery at .Melbourne and the painter of the picture "Sleep" reproduced in the magazine. He deposed that he had liecn painting pictures on and oil for seven years. It had been exhibited in Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide, and had been commented upon "for and against." He had been painting for years, and had never in all his life heard works of this sort referred to as indecent. "Sleep" was a decorative picture meant to beautify. All it was meant to convey was the impression of-heat, sleep and stillness. In all the reviews of the pictuie that had been printed no suggestion of indecency had been made. Detective M'Grath: That picture as a work of art is not indecent, but might it not he so under other circumstances? Witness: I only know how they regard the nude throughout the world. I don't know how they regaid it here. If they regard the nude as indecent, well Mr Herdman: Do you consider the reproduction of your picture in the Lone Hand would constitute the circumstances

in which it would become indecent? Witness : Oh, no ; certainly not. He volunteered the statement to the Bench that he was not interested in this case one way or another. He was simply asked by the Lone Hand proprietary if he would allow them to produce his picture, and ho gave them his permission. A number of other witnesses were called, including Hon. T. K. Macdonald, Mr H. S. Wardell, S.M. (President, of the Academy of Fine Arts), and Mr Illingworth (sculptor), who scouted the idea of prosecution for such a case. One of them denounced it as a grotesque absurdity. Judgment was reserved.