PAINTING REJECTED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27112, 21 June 1949, Page 4

PAINTING REJECTED

«IFT TO CHRISTCHURCH WORK BY FRANCES HODGKINS The painting, “The Pleasure Garden,” by the New Zealand artist, Frances Hodgkins, which was bought by public subscription and offered to the Mayor of Christchurch, Mr E. H. Andrews, for display in the Robert McDougall Art Gallery, has been rejected by the By-laws Committee of the Christchurch City Council. In a statement on the rejection of the painting, Mrs Margaret Frankel said it was proper that any public art gallery should have the right—indeed it had the duty—to refuse gifts which were not in keeping with high artistic standards. But could the painting in question seriously be challenged on these grounds’ “It is a work of an artist recently described by the art critic of Time and Tide as ‘one of our greatest contemnorarv English painters at the time of her death,’ ” Mrs Frankel said. “ The Sunday Times referred to her as follows: ‘ Her inventiveness, or rather her power of discovery, was inexhaustible.' Tn nuote further from a cable printed in The Press of March 31, ‘several (critics) say without qualification that' Ei.n.e ..odgi-ans was the greatest woman painter ever to work in England.’ “As for the painting, it was chosen by the Art Section of the British Council, renowned all over the world for its competence in assembling collections of British art.

«The subscribers include five sitting or former members of the council of the Canterbury Society of Arts. 10 working artists, and men and women in various professions. The members of the Advisory Committee who rejected the painting are Messrs C. F. Kelly, A. F. Nicoll, and R. work, all members of*the council of the Canterbury Society of Arts, and, one may presume, committed to the stand which this body has taken against the Frances Hodgkins paintings ever since their arrival in this country. They are obviously at liberty to exercise their tastes in their private capacity. But the public, and especially those vitally interested in the art life of the city and the country, may feel that less reactionary counsel should prevail in the selection of paintings for our public gallery. “ There is a place in any gallery for different kinds of pictures. The McDougall gallery already houses a representative collection of Canterbury and New Zealand artists, as well as works by well-known French -and English winters the latter for the greater part purchased early this century. Is our gallery to be bereft of new ideas? Are we to show none of that broadening interest in new works and new vision which characterises the policy of the Tate Gallery in London and the Palais de Tokio in Paris? ” Mrs Frankel concluded