GRAPHIC ARTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 886, 1 February 1930, Page 13

GRAPHIC ARTS

Print Room Now Open at the Art Gallery EXCELLENT COLLECTION Auckland’s collection of examples of j the graphic arts are now housed in the old statuary room of the Art Gallery. The collection was started about three or four years ago, when the City Council purchased about a dozen pictures, mostly engravings, at a sale at Palmerston North. Frequently single pictures have been purchased by the council or presented to it, and finally a decision was made that the pictures should all be housed together to form a permanent collection. There are about 70 pictures in the collection, and several more have been acquired recently, but have not yet been exhibited. The work of selection and hanging has been done by Mr. John Barr, City Librarian, and Mr. T. V. Gulliver, an authority on the graphic arts. This year the Library Committee ot the City Council agreed to set aside £IOO of the purchase picture fund for the acquisition of more prints and etchings, and it is hoped that sum cient pictures will be obtained to vary the collection from time to time. Although the collection is not a very large one, it consists of some excellent examples of the graphic arts, including etchings, woodcuts, dry points, mezzo-tints, steel engravings* and colour prints. Five of Charles Meryon's etchings, made from sketches he did when he visited Akaroa in 1854 as an officer on the French corvette Le Rhin, are among the most valuable in the collection, and are splendid examples of his work. A coloured etching by Thomas Rowlandson, an 18th century caricaturist, and a number of mezzo-tints after Reynolds, Hogarth, Stothard and Kuffman, are all interesting. A copper engraving after Van Dyck is a beautiful piece of work, as is also a mezzotint in colour of Raeburn’s portrait of “The Mac Nab,” by H. MacbethRaeburn. WOOD-BLOCK PRINT One of the most lovely pictures in the collection, both from the point of view of colour and design, is Mrs. Norbertine Besslern-Roth’s wood block print of three tigers drinking. There are two other of her works in the collection. Among tlie etchings which have just been acquired but which have yet to be exhibited are examples of the work of Alphonse Legros (the French impressionist), Sir Charles Holroyd, Alfred Bentley, E. Ray Jones, Elizabeth Whydale, Mortimer Mempes, Graham Sutherland, W. P. Robins and Joseph Simpson. Pictures by Blampied, Brockhurst and Hoyton have been purchased but have not yet arrived in Auckland. It is impossible to go into the details of the pictures on view, but they will interest both the visitor and the connoisseur. There is an excellent Lee Hankey “The Shepherdess,” two pictures by Malcolm Osborne, an excellent figure study by the Czecho-Slovakian, Konjity, and others by J. C. Goodheart and George Soper. Auckland artists are well represented. Several of the pictures came to the collection by way of the old Quoin Club. There are etchings and woodcuts by Arnold Goodwin, T. V. Gulliver, D. J. Payne, E. Warner and the late L. J. Steele. As time goes on it is hoped to obtain further examples of the work of New Zealand artists from other centres.

This year an exhibition of New' Zealand etchings and modern colour photography will be held in the print room. The New York Camera Club has agreed to send some of its w r ork.