MRS MURRAY FULLER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22545, 12 April 1935, Page 16

MRS MURRAY FULLER

AN INTERESTING WOMAN WITH AN INTERESTING CAREER

Airs Alurray Fuller, whose exhibition of contemporary British art will follow that of James Scott in the Pioneer Hall next week and be opened by Air P. L, Halsted on Tuesday afternoon at a private view, is a woman of great interest and charm, and a worthy person to carry on the torch first lighted by her husband and then held aloft by them both until his recent death. The necessity for Joan exhibitions of contemporary art was realised by the late Mr Murray Fuller when he was himself a student at the Art School in Wellington, and when seeking a contact with the great painters of the day, he found that distance and expense made such a contact impossible for all but students who had money and could travel. (He and his wife were students under James Scott

himself, in Wellington, when Scott was master at the Art School there before the war.) When, therefore, he and his wife went abroad, they went fully deter-mined-to do something to help other New Zealand artists less fortunate than themselves. Periodic exhibitions of the works of contemporary artists were the result. Airs Murray Fuller, like her husband, was trained as an artist, but of recent years has given so much of her time to exhibitions that she has had none left for painting. She studied in London under Airs Eleanor Hughes (originally from Christchurch) and then under S. J. Lamorna Birch. Her days now arc spent in travelling with her exhibitions, in seeing exhibitions herself, in visiting painters, and personally selecting works from their studios, and generally in attending to the task to which she lias given herself. Some day she may have time to write a book on her experiences, and a fascinating book it will be, for “ talking paint ” is at once her hobby and her life work. It is interesting to realise that the present exhibition contains the work of a large number of women—Dame Laura Knight (wife of Harold Knight), Beatrice Bland, A. K. Browning (in private life the wife of T. G. Dngdale, the portrait painter), Helen APKenzie (wife of Herbert A. Budd the artist), Alargaret Fisher Prout, Emily Court, Lucy Kemp-Welch, and many others. All of them work extremely hard, throwing themselves wholeheartedly into their art and, in the case of wives with artist husbands, working in studios independent of their husbands altogether. Dame Laura Knight, for instance, who always stands up to paint and is famous for her studies of circus life, recently broke her leg and for nine months cOuld not work at her easel. So great was her zest for work, however, that, though she wag lying on her back for three months, she made a number of designs for pottery and glass for known firms in England, these being, carried out and exhibited at the Art and Industry Exhibition at Burlington House in January of this year. “Beatrice Bland” (in Airs Alurray Fuller’s own words) “is known for her sensitive treatment of flowers. Most 9* the artists who express themselves in painting flowers have a very tender love for them. Aliss Bland grows and tends her flowers and sees them in an unusual way. She paints landscape and the sea. Her studio is in that very well-known part of London, Chcyno Walk, looking on the Thames flowing by. She has a great collection of unusual objects, very necessary in making up the varied arrangements in which flowers are introduced. Her landscapes are bathed in sunlight, and are painted mostly around the beautiful Mediterranean coast, “Emily Court lives in the country, on the downs near Newmarket. Here she in able to indulge her hobby of tending flowers and animals. Her landscapes are quiet and truly representative of the country in which she lives. Aliss Court recently won the 5000-dollar prize from the Pittsburgh Art Gallery for the best flewor painting of the your. “ Alargaret Fisher Front comes of a painting family, her father being the late Mark Fisher, R.A. Alany years ago when impressionistic painting was not known as it is to-day Mrs Fisher Front was trying out new ideas in that manner. A versatile being, figure, landscape, or flowers offer her choice of subject. Her more recent works are described ns ‘thought forms,’ her interest being in form and colour. She is represented in this collection by a landscape and an important figure painting which is causing much interest among the artists and students. . , “ A. K. Browning is also varied in her treatment and outlook. Such subjects as ‘ Life,’ a straight-out statement of woman-

hood, and ‘ Studio Interior,’ show much diversity of treatment. Figures either in motion or stationary are painted with vigour. What a feeling of wind and the ‘ out-of-doors ’ is encompassed in the smaller beach subject with its many small figures enjoying the freshness of the sea. “ Helen APKenzie chooses for her subjects something belonging to country life. Was there ever such a jolly country boy, white chook under arm, his whip in hand showing his control of the beasts of the fields? This painter has great knowledge of the country and its life. “ Lucy Kemp-Welch has been known for many a long day as a painter of horses. She is nainting as vigorously as ever. At her home in Bushey she has many fine horses, and here she is able to paint them amidst the natural surroundings of trees and fields, Aliss Kemp-Welch travels the country in search of fresh subjects, and often has commissions for painting well-known hunters. “ In Eleanor Hughes we have a woman painter of marked abality who belongs to this country, New Zealand. After training at the Art School in Christchurch, she went abroad for further study, and has made a place for herself in England. She is considered one of the best draftsmen in England—that is the opinion of Dame Laura Knight. Her drawing of trees is a passion; sometimes as long as 10 days is expended on a searching study of these lovely subjects.” Other New Zealand women abroad are Francos Hodgkins, one of the foremost women in the ultra-modern movement in painting, and Airs Alabcl AlTndoe, of Dunedin, who is making a name for herself in London and who has a very clever family. Airs Alurray Fuller also knows intimately Jan and Cora Cordon, painters and writers, two vital people who have travelled extensively and written and illustrated many books of their adventures together.