AUSTRALIAN ARTIST

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27025, 9 March 1949, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN ARTIST

BIOGRAPHY OF. SIR JOHN LONGSTAFF Portrait in Youth. By Nina Murdoch. Angus and Robertson. 15s 6d. It is fitting that this pioneer of modern art in Australia should have found, in the first decade after his death, a biographer so sympathetic and understanding. Sir John Longstaff, the first Australian to be knighted for his services to art, was a vital, laughter-loving person who retained to the end the spirit of youth which the author recalls as his outstanding personal characteristic. Born in Victoria in 1861, Longstaff won, in 1887, the Victorian Government travelling scholarship that enabled him, although with some hardship, to study in England and Paris. It is more difficult to assess the art of Longstaff than his character. Although he gained a considerable reputation as a painter of genre, it is by his portraits that he will be remembered. From the modern movements in Paris he borrowed new ideas in glowing colour, and these he combined cautiously but skilfully with his own more conservative views. In the result, his portraits were marked by rich, but disciplined, colour, and the individuality that only he could give them. His memory is well served by this biography, which is as frank as he would have wished it. E. A. A.