A New Zealander In Sydney Town

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 664, 16 May 1929, Page 6

A New Zealander In Sydney Town

SYDNEY, May 10. The official opening ol! the Society of Arts Show, at David Jones’s gallery, was a very colourful affair indeed. Lord Stonehaven, almost outshone in sartorial glory by his new aide-de-camp, sported a pink carnation in his buttonhole. Mr. George Lambert preserved the true Lambertian pose with a pair of chrome coloured washing gloves, worn only, of course, as chrome coloured gloves can be by an eminent A.R.A. And a Bohemian-looking youth, with much hirsute adornment, attracted even more attention with his green shirt and emerald tie. Tempting St. Anthony This exhibition, which was the inspiration of Mr. Lambert, is peculiarly interesting from the fact that it is largely devoted to examples of decorative designs, drawings for more important works, and technical exercises not usually seen at the regular shows. .Jn addition, water colours and drawings by important artists, including Hans Heysen, Blamire Young, Will Ashton, Harold Herbert, Adrian Feint, Thea Proctor, Daryl Lindsay, Sydney Ure Smith, Will Dyson, Arthur Murch, Muir Arnold, and Norman Carter, may be inspected. Victoria Cowdray’s conception of the “Temptation of St. Anthony” revealed, as one critic put it, with “far too much pathological detail,” was the one jarring note, to my mind, in a show of brilliant standard. Johnson for Melbourne Minnie White, the Auckland painter, whom I met at the exhibition, told me that Robert Johnson, the New Zealander, who created a sensation in Sydney a year or so ago with his first exhibition of oils, proposes to hold a show in Melbourne in September. Miss White, by the way, whose work was always a feature of the Auckland exhibition. will be represented there again this year. Cowardly Assaults After all these weeks of idleness among the timber workers, we seem no nearer a settlement. This, of course, must come. It seems impossible that the men can hold out for any great length of time. The frequency of attacks, often cowardly and invariably brutal, has been a feature of the strike as far as the unfortunate loyalists are concerned. This is the principal reason for lack of public sympathy with the strikers. Since the first attack upon a timber worker 12 weeks ago, there have been 61 cases of attacks directly attributed to timber pickets. In one instance a deaf and dumb man was battered into insensibility. Auckland’s “Reputation” A Sydney minister who was sent to the United States to investigate the prohibition situation made a statement of interest to New Zealanders the other day. Most emphatically, he declared, he found more drunks in two blocks in the city of Auckland than he did in the whole of his stay of six weeks in the Land ol? the Dollar. Which, of course, is very ridiculous. Auckland, as a matter of fact, is by no means worthy of such a reputation. Nevertheless, such statements are damaging, and should be refuted. Cruise in the Pacific Sydney is to be included in the Pacific cruise of the 23,000-ton liner Malolo, which is being organised by fhe San Francisco Chamber of Commerce in order that 400 hurtling American men of business might see something of the big world out of their own country. The Malolo is due at Fremantle from the East on November 16, according to the present schedule. Early Australian Pictures An oil painting of Sydney Harbour in 1840 by Conrad Martens realised 250 guineas at the sale of Mr. John Young’s art collection this week. Another Martens canvas, a morning impression of the harbour, was sold for 155 guineas. Two water colours, “Woolahra House” and “Homestead, N.5.W..” brought 85 and 45 guineas respectively. An Oil painting by J. Glen Wilson, “Sydney from Port Denison,” realised 100 guineas. The highest prices obtained for Baxter prints were 19 guineas each for “The Lovers’ Getter Eox,” and “The Fruit Girl of the Alps.” One otheh Baxter reached 17 guineas. The Le Blond prints ranged up to 11£ guineas. ERIC RAMSDEN.