ART SOCIETY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 107, 8 May 1934, Page 7

ART SOCIETY

THE EMPIRE COLLECTION EXHIBITION AT WANGANUI. Much interest has been aroused in Wanganui in view of the fact that the collection of pictures arranged by the Empire Art Loans Collections Society is to come to Wanganui during September, aud it is evident that there is a widespread desire among the public to see the collection. Specially arranged, it comprises paintings, drawings, and prints illustrating developments in British art during the last seventy years, from 1862 to 1932. The exhibition was opened in Dunedin last week. Speaking at the opening ceremony, Mr. Downie Stewart said that the Empire Art Loan Collections Society in London, which was formed at the request of New Zealand, recently approached the Prime Minister, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, to secure legislation enabling the National Gallery, the Tate Gallery, and other great institutions to lend overseas collections out of the abundance of their artistic treasures. That deputation was supported by the High Commissioners for New Zealand and Australia aud various Agents-General. The report stated that Sir James Parr made an impassioned appeal, and he was supported by other speakers. The Prime Minister promised to do all ho could to secure legislation, and was so keenly interested that he offered to lend his own Turner and Gainsborough paintings.

At the opening, a message was also read from the Governor-General, Lord Bledisloe, which stated: —‘‘At this stage iu the development of the Dominion I can imagine no project more salutary or usefully fertile in its ultimate consequence than your patriotic project—now Teaching fruition —of organising and bringing to this country a collection of really good pictures of eminent British artists from the time of Whistler to the present day. The pursuit of the fine arts may hardly be deemed to have had a serious beginning in this country, so abundantly endowed by Nature with all that is beautiful and inspiring, and there has been a real danger among our young people of their craving for artistic expression finding utterance in false or distorted conceptions of aesthetic beauty and in adherence to transient canons of art, founded upon unreal sentiment of a cramped outlook upon life, and its ideals and possibilities. ‘‘This danger is clue in no small measure to the almost entire lack in this Dominion of pictures and statuary of outstanding technical excellence and admitted inspirational genius such as the fortunate residents in the Old World have the immense advantage of viewing in the numerous historic galleries which surround them, and of deriving therefrom untold profit, spiritual, moral and technical. Your enlightened enterprise goes far to remove this serious handicap and to lay the foundations of a new era of definite and active cultural progress for which this Dominion is now ripe. The scheme has my entire sympathy and enthusiastic support, and I 'trust that your neighbours in Dunedin will show their appreciation of your zeal in promoting it by attending in large numbers the first exhibition of the Empire Art Loan Collection.”

A complete list of the artists whose work is represented in the exhibition is as follows: — Stanley Anderson, A.R.A., R. S. Austin. Walter Bayes, Max Beerbohm, Vanessa Bell, Henry Bishop, A.R.A., E. Blampied, Beatric Bland, David Bomberg, Muirhead Bone, Frank Brangwyn, R.A., G. L. Brockhurst, A.R.A., H. J. Stuart Brown, Sir D. Y. Cameron, R.A., Katherine Cameron, George Charlton, Sir George Clausen, 8.A., Tom Collier, Philip Connard, R.A., John Copley, Charles Cundall, Jane de Glehn, W. G. de Glehn, R.A., Francis Dodd, A.R.A., R. O. Dunlop, Mark Fisher. R.A., R. Purvis Flint, W. Russell Flint, R.A., Roger Fry, Ethel Gabain, Mark Gertler, Eric Gill, H. Gilman, Charles Ginner, Spencer Gore, Sylvia Gosse, Dun-

can Grant, James A. Grant, F. L. Griggs. R.A., H. James Gunn, Lady Edna Clarke Hall, Martin Hardie, Fairlie Harmar, Alfred Robert Hayward? Elsie M. Henderson, Sir Charles Holmes, H. S. Hopwood, George Houston, R. Ililee. J. D. Innes, Augustus John, R.A., P. H. Jowett, Henry Keen, Eric Kennington, J. Buxton Knight, Dame Laura Knight,' A.R.A., Cecil Lawson, Sydney Lee. R.A., Derwent Lees. H. Neville Lewis, Moffatt Lindner, E. S. Lumsden, D. S. MacLaughlan, James Mcßey, Ambrose McEvoy, A.R.A., Allan McNab, William McTaggart, J. B. Manson, B. Meivinsky, W. T. Monnington, A.R.A., Cedric Morris, David Muirhead, A.R..A., John Nash, Paul Nash, Tom Nash, Geoffrey Nelson, C. R. W. Nevinson, William Nicholson. Job Nixon, Sir William Orpen, R.A., Orovida Malcolm Osborne, R.A., S. J. Peploe, Louise Pickard, Lucien Uissarro, James Pryde, Fred Richards, Charles Ricketts, R.A., William Roberts, Sir William Rothenstein, Theodore Roussel, Henry Rusbury, A.R.A., Walter Russell, R.A., A. D. Rutherston, John Singer Sargent, R.A., Elliott Seabro ike, Randolph Schwabe, Charles Shannon, R.A., Sir Frank Short, R.A., W. R. Sickert, R.A., Joseph Simpson, Charles Sims, R.A., John Skeaping, Matthew Smith, Stanley Spencer, A.R.A., P. Wilson Steer, William Strang. R.A., A. R. Middleton Todd, Alfonso Toft. Professor Henry Tonks, Wflliam Walcot, Ethel Walker, Harry Watson, C. H. Wedgwood, Ethelbert. White, J. McNeill Whistler, Edward Wolfe, Christopher Wood, Richard Wyndham.