AUCKLAND SOCIETY OF ARTS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume X, Issue 10, 11 March 1893, Page 230

AUCKLAND SOCIETY OF ARTS.

THE EXHIBITION OF 1893.

ONE scarcely knows what to say concerning the Art Exhibition now open in Auckland. It is neither better nor woise than the Society's exhibitions in previous years, but is superior both in quantity and quality to the Academy Exhibition some months ago. This is, it must be confessed, not the most liberal of praise, but it is what most people say and think, and is undoubtedly true. The public are, in truth, satiated with exhibitions that do not rise above the level of mediocrity. There are tew pictures in this Exhibition of the lamentable—shall we say crudity, which have defaced the walls in previous years. The number of atrociously bad pictures exhibited is smaller than at any exhibition held here for some years, but there are scarcely half-a-dozen canvases that rise above the level of very middle-class mediocrity. There are the same bits of bush, the same small scraps of creeks, the same studies of table cloths, fruit, and the same faithful copies of inartistic objects. Last year Mr Blomfield ‘did’ Otira Gorge. This year Mr J. Gibb has a picture of almost exactly the same spot and so on. The same artist has, by the way, a sea scene, which is one of the good things in the show. Taken all round the exhibition is, then, profoundly uninteresting. The artists of the committee have not been shy in hanging their own pictures. Mr C. Blomfield has some nice exhibits, but ‘ The Governor’s Farewell ’ is an awful example of art as it is understood by the committee, whose opinions the other artists have to abide by. There are few worse pictures shown this year. Miss Maud Vaile is one of the members whose exhibits show a marked improvement, and in her case the progress made has been truly wonderful, and does more credit to her master than do his own canvases, which are distinctly disappointing. He shows nothing to come up to last year’s ‘ Sunset on the Waikato,’ a really fine picture. There is one other who has vastly improved — Mr Walter W right—who shows two of the finest pictures in the exhibition, both of which we reproduce herewith. * A Summer Day on Whangarei Harbour ’ is the finest landscape shown, by a very long way. Mr Drummond has neither advanced nor gone back, but still paints the same subjects in the same pleasant, if not masterly, fashion. Mr Trenwith ought, perhaps, to have been mentioned as having piogressed. Miss Morton shows some nice animal studies, and is yet unchallenged as the budding Landseer of the North Island. A cloud study of hers, in water colours, is a picture well worth looking at, though small. Our illustrations are from pictures by Walter Wright, Miss Nina Russell, and Mr T. L. Drummond.