ART AND ARTISTS

New Zealand Graphic, Volume X, Issue 4, 28 January 1893, Page 80

ART AND ARTISTS

THE decision of the English Government to devote the site of Millbank Prison to the erection of the Tate Gallery will secure to the nation a unique artistic benefaction. Mr Henry Tate, the well-known sugar refiner of Liverpool, has a collection of pictures ready for his new gallery, which includes such masterpieces as Millais’ ‘North-West Passage,’ Sir F. Leighton’s ‘The Sea shall give up her Dead,’ and Mr Fildes’ stiiking work ‘ The Doctor.’ Sir E. Landseer, Miss Thompson, Mr Orchardson, and Mr Waterhouse, are but a few of the other leading names in the world of art, which will be worthily represented in the new gallery. The building itself, which has been designed by Mr Smith, will be a solidly imposing edifice, with a fine frontage to the river. Millbank Prison, familiar to Londoners on this site for three quarters of a century, was the successor of Bentham’s ‘ Panopticon,’ a some-

what fancifully-conceived establishment, where criminals were to be kept under glass for public inspection. The scheme was very popular for a time, but soon collapsed, and Millbank was erected. Its appearance, it has been remarked, was not unlike a star-fort; its erection was a very costly operation, as, owing to the marshy nature of the soil, the foundations more than once disappeared altogether. It was to Millbank that Carlyle came to visit Ernest Jones and other Chartist prisoners—a visit on which the sage moralises in ‘ Latter day Pamphlets.’ In later years the prison was reserved for the reception of female convicts, but for three years it has been untenanted. Grass grows in the yards where prisoners took their monotonous exercise, and nothing but the solid brick walls remain. The decision to place the site at the disposal of Mr Tate has enabled the First Commissioner of Works to hurry on the work of demolition in order to relieve, if possible, the pressure of the unemployed question. The whole structure is so massively built that its pulling down will find a good deal of work for men of the unskilled labouring class —an incidental circumstance which will probably cause the name of the generous Mr Tate to be blessed by many whose appreciation of his artistic benefactions would be rather vague.

The Parisian and London friends of Mr Steel, our New Zealand artist, will be pleased to learn that a movement is on foot to commission this artist to paint a large picture of the Signing of the Treaty of Waitanga at the Bay of Islands. The picture is to be subscribed for by the public, each subscriber receivirg a large photogravure of the painting, the same being executed by Goupil, the prince of photo engravers, and whose works in photogravure are superb. Most certainly New Zealand should possess such a picture, and Mr Steele is the man to paint it. There is no matter of doubt that he would produce a canvas of unchanging interest—one which would tell posterity the story of those early days far better than a score of histories, and the value which would increase with every year that passed.

Mr Steele has a fine imagination, and his pre-Raphaelitish love of detail is so intense that the picture would be a most realistic representation of the scene. Several letters from eminent men have been written to the Ministers on the subject, and the matter is now under consideration. It is considered probable that the Government will subscribe liber ally. That it ought to do so there is no question.