Arts and Crafts.

Progress, Volume VI, Issue 12, 2 October 1911, Page 830

Arts and Crafts.

Exhibitors at the coming yearly exhibition of the N.Z. Academy of Fine Arts are now busy finishing off the very last touches and trying the effects of various frames. There have been several attempts made by different members of the council to introduce a rule that all exhibitors should use frames of a similar colour. The usual gilt has been suggested as well as the rather dangerous white and the somewhat too strongly insistent black. There can be no doubt that an exhibition has a better all-round effect from every point of argument with a uniformity of framing than as at present, with its jumbled assortment of colours, each frame struggling for prominence and injuring its neighbour in the eye of the public. However, nothing yet has been done in the acceptance of any rule to alter or improve this state of affairs. The coming picture show will be opened on Saturday, October 7th, by His Excellency Lord Islington, who will be received by Mr. 11. M. Gore, the new President. Unfortunately, the work of Sydney artists, which is usually a source of interest and attraction, will not be seen this time, the Sydney show of work being held at almost the same time. At the annual meeting of the Academy held on August 29th, Mr. 11. S. Wardell, the retiring President, bade his official good-bye to the members of the society. Mr. Wardell has held the office of President for so many years, has done so much good for the Society, and given to it all his interest and all his time, that those present found it difficult to fully express their appreciation of his valuable services.

The following new officers were elected:—President. Mr. H. M. Gore; Vice-Presidents, Dr. Fell. Mr. 11. Linley Richardson; Council, Miss Holmes. Miss D. K. Richmond, Mr. A. Hamilton, Mr. L. IT. R. Wilson. The four non-retiring members of the Council of eight are: Mrs. J. A. Tripe, Mrs. J. A. Hannah, Mr. A. T Bate, Mr. IT. Ray ward. It was unanimously agreed that should an extraordinary vacancy occur on the Council, Mr Wardell should be asked to

accept the position. The Society was anxious to retain his services and the help of his advice. Mr. VVarclell expressed his thanks and pleasure at the high opinion the Society was pleased to hold of him. A scheme has been organised, after much thought and debate, for the spending of the Government grant of £SOO. Mr. G. Clausen has kindly offered to overlook a collection of work to be sent out here if the Wellington Council could arrange for some one to make a preliminary selection. After much thought it was decided to ask Mr. John Baillie, of Baillie's Gallery, London, to get i number 6f pictures together for that pur- *

pose, and Wellington can hope to see in the near future a small exhibition of fine work. No art critic has a better claim to write the first English book on post-impres-sionism than Mr. Lewis Hind, for he, from the very first hint of the approach of the new movement in England, has faced the innovator boldly, with every intention of understanding his aim ' and meaning, and, if consistent with his own intellectual honesty, of joining hands with the newcomer. Most English critics have trembled before the latest note in art, either in bewilderment or indignation, and many have hit out blindly at the new thing as though they were endeavouring to strike a half-seen enemy. Mr. Lewis Hind has "kept his head," as we say, insisting upon that necessary part of the anatomy, solving the riddle of the pictures of Cezanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse, and the others. The result of this conflict of ideas are now set forth in his handsome volume. "The Post-Impressionists" (Methuen, 7/6 net), and the argument is embellished with several very excellently reproduced examples of the 'work of the painters under discussion. Mr. Hind is now a convinced believer in the new movement, and his book, although it does not do more than mention the living exponents of modernist art. with the exception of Matisse, may be taken as an earnest noil-technical introduction to the subject,

written with that graceful literary buoyancy which has made Mr. Hind the one art critic who can make the discussion of art interesting to the lay mind. The presidents of the Art Societies of Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and the Public Art Gallery, Dunedin, have petitioned Parliament for the grant of a sum for the present financial year for the purchase of works of art. They ask that such sum as may be granted may be apportioned between the petitioning societies, and be expended by them in the purchase of works of art of educational value, to be placed in galleries to which the public shall have free entrance, subject to such reasonable exceptions and restrictions as are usual. Although there is not the same call for designers in New Zealand as there is in England, it is gratifying to note that the Royal College of Art, London, is taking active steps to train men as designers for purely manufacturing purposes. There are so many manufactured articles that one sees day after day which show such poor designing that it is pleasing to know that steps are being taken to give us something better. A moment, please! We do not often transgress in wearying you with personal matters, but, alas! in a weak moment we allowed our trumpeter to visit the Coronation—said he wished to acquire the latest and most original thing in fanfares —and the beggar hasn't returned! That means—but you see the point? Yes! We have to do our own trumpeting for this occasion at least. You see we have been told that it was impossible to do high-class printing and reproducing in New Zealand. That artistic striking individual issue covers were not to be found except upon the front of the very best American magazines. That expensive process blocks and really good paper would be altogether beyond the scope of a modest little journal such as ours. In

contradiction of this we point with pride to our last issue—the Railway Number. The cover is the work of Mr. E. Warner. an artist of English reputation, now living in Wellington. The centre engine is the winning photo in our photographic competition, which was won by Mr. Hutchinson, of Wellington. It is one of the Dominion's largest locomotives ready for the Main Trunk run. The design and effect are as striking as the tones are delicate and artistic.