Southland Women's Club

Southland Times, Issue 25362, 14 August 1935, Page 5

Southland Women's Club

BRIDGE CIRCLE. The highest score for Contract was won by Mrs W. G. Clark, while the highest score for Auction went to Mrs J. Dow at the weekly meeting of the Bridge Circle on Monday. • ARTS’ AND CRAFTS’ CRICLE. On Monday afternoon and evening the Arts’ and Crafts’ Circle held an exhibition of needlework pictures in the card room. These pictures are the work of Miss Anne E. Robinson, of Dunedin, and strike an ususual note in the world of art. They are colourful and striking and at the same time there is a daintiness about them which suggests the work of a fine brush rather than a needle and thread. The collection consists of between fifty and sixty pictures and of these wild flowers are the chief subject. Of special interest are two of New Zealand plants, one of Kowhai and the other of part of a silver birch. Gorse plays a large part in the background of a pleasing study of pukaki called "Expectation” and depicting the bird watching a tiny dark object in a pool. The flower studies are of wild flowers of the British Isles and are charming pieces of work. More bold are the two scenes in Dumfrieshire where the artist has employed applique in the blending of colour. “Oirnacoille” or "The Green Path By the Wood,” is a delightful woodland study of part of one of the Countess of Seafield’s estates. Miss Robinson works her pictures from nature and in the case of a landscape she briefly outlines in pencil before applying the colour. For the larger landscapes she takes a pure linen, the colour required for the greatest part of the background and completes the picture by laying on to it pieces cut into shape and coloured in accordance with the subject. The details are embroidered and the linens are joined by applique in matching shades. The smaller landscapes consist entirely of embroidery and the flower and butterfly studies are on a background of natural coloured linen. The type of stitch used is immaterial to the artist except in the case of the ruin of Craignell, one of Bruce’s strongholds at Colmonell where she has made the trees in the foreground entirely of French knots. She uses pure linen to work on and silks, which she has brought from England, to work with, but she has found that stranded cotton gives an equally good effect. Miss Robinson has never been to a school of art and started her work soon after the war. As well as her collection of pictures she has a number of exquisite supper cloths embroidered in white which show clearly that movement and change of design can be obtained with white thread just as easily as it can with the mingling of colours. Although she finds linen the most satisfactory material for her work, Miss Robinson has made an exception for “Summer” and “Autumn,” two delightful studies of Kate Greenaway girls worked in green and autumn tonings respectively on heavy silk, over sixty years old, which once formed part of,.her mother’s wedding gown.