MODERN SPIRIT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 192, 15 August 1931, Page 19 (Supplement)

MODERN SPIRIT

MISSING FROM GALLERIES REFORM NEEDED. It is time the question was asked in , all seriousness: What is the use of our Public Art Galleries throughout the country? Are they functioning in the : service for which they exist? (asks , Arthur Howell in an article in the London “Daily Telegraph”). | Arc they encouraging the knowledge , | and development of Art? Are they giving the public and the young artist , facilities to study tho great achievements of the painting world to-day ? Let it bo said at once, no. They are t utterly stagnant. And their attitude of , negation is slowly stifling all aspiration . to progress. Where are represented the great Im . pressionist and post-impressionist move- , ments of the last seventy years? The answer is adequately nowhere, inadequately at the Tate Gallery and Manchester only. Arc we to sit tight for > ever and watch without protest millions i of our countrymen being deprived of the smallest knowledge of contemporary ' I art in their own land? , Consider what our public libraries arc ' . doing for literature. A week after pub j > lication the community is in immediate . touch with highest thought and latest . experiences in contemporary literary effort, which therefore have a real and [ vitalising influence upon their lives. - In the Making. But what of the art galleries? I> painting of so small a significance that . when its highest achievements reach j the galleries they are no longer con i temporary, but dead, without any conI auction with the spirit of the day > Where arc the Cezannes, Van Goghs. * Gauguins, Manets, Monets, Renoirs, D ■ * gases, to say nothing of the later and ■ therefore less known but no lesser artists, Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Mod * igliani, Derain, Dufy, and our English , bickert, Augustus John, Duncan Grant. ; Matthew >Snnth, and others? There are the men who have made I and are making art history. But thc| i committees of the galleries apparently | ' know nothing about them and careless. Yet they pose as being competent !'■ i direct the public taste. There is no > other branch of knowledge in which - such conditions exist. Take music. Contemporary with Cez anno and others were the great music. ? composers, Wagner, Liszt, Saint-Saens. Debussy, Tchaikovsky. Verdi, Elgar, i Brahms, and Strauss —household names i to everyone, and with whose works the t public has been satiated. Yet the paint- i ers named, in every way as great, arc| , by comparison scarcely known in Eng ■ land. ’y, 1| The vast majority of public art gal- . iery committees should be scrapped or , reformed. That docs not apply, of course, to museums and those galleries | given over to old masters, nor to the 1 curators, who w?ll know tho failings of their committees 1 have talked with * them. They become suppressed, and s have their interests driven into the 1 achievements of the past, eventually s becoming more learned tabulators and n antiquaries. They should be freed from f the shackles of their parochial commits tees. el Lack of Foresight. '• It will be said that galleries cannot i- afford to buy the best paintings at the p high prices commanded. Of course thev s cannot. They wait too long and miss i the market. Why wait to be interestr cd until the artist has made his name? e Purses are not then deep enough, with the result that in the gallery the painter remains unrepresented, and the public suffers from lack of foresight. Ln any case, an artist’s work is frequently ' better before he makes his namu. But shortage of funds is really no ex- \ cuse. An art gallery need spend no r more than £lOOO a year to keep abreast ". of the times and be represented by tho great painters. If intelligently spent ’ £5OO a year would give an adequate e representation. The art galleries should buy when G prices are no higher than £5O. A painter x is already considered good, or fashion- . able, to command even that price, and ’ it is not difficult to distinguish which is the good. ( To illustrate this point. Three years ago most of the paintings by Matthew * Smith could have been bought at from £3O to £5O each. Now they bring up to q £650. Why were our art galleries not stocked with them three years ago? Among the “inner circle” he was known to be an individual artist. Such neglect is not serving the public. Spirit of the Day. r i Again, Miss Frances Hodgkins held * an exhibition in London last October, f and sold everything. She is known to . be one of our most original artists, and * the public were told so at the time by

the leading critics. But I think 1 ain right in saying that up to now not a single one of her paintings is to be found in any of our public galleries, 'i ct she promises to be the finest woman I painter England has produced. What we require are full and representative collections of tho best pictures displaying the spirit of the day. How otherwise can our own art progress? 1 The happy hunting ground of committees is the Royal Academy, which is ’ not, representative of the best. In I sculpture, where are Epstein, Eric Gill, ' Frank Dobson, and Henry Moore? Never in the Academy! A demand should be made that thing? bo altered. The people should hav< what is their right. Painting should Ih i brought into their lives, so that pictor- . ial imagery may mean something tc i them, and become what the poem, th* > drama, the dance, and music are t<» al» of us—a living influenza.