AUCKLAND ART GALLERY

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 225, 22 September 1928, Page 9

AUCKLAND ART GALLERY

VALUABLE ADDITIONS. UNDER MYERS BEQUEST. TYPICAL WORK BY AUGUSTUS JOHN-. Interesting and valuable additions will soon be made to the collection of paintings in the Auckland Art Gallery. Four pictures, purchased in London recently, under the terms of the bequest of the late Sir Arthur Myers, have been received, and permanent positions will be found for them on the walls. The pictures are representative of four very distinct schools, ranging from the almost Corot-like picturesqueness of Jean Francois Raffaelli, to the direct and essentially individual appeal of Augustus John. The Raffaelli picture, dated 1895, is a landscape painting in oils, showing a duck pond in the foreground with trees and cottages on the farther bank. The sky and the water surface are curiously alike in treatment and there is definite evidence of the influence of the French school in the feathery treatment of the branches and' leaves of the silver birches. The portrait by John is that of the head of a Jew in profile. The sitter is evidently of the working classes, but there is a very marked air of natural gentility in his face, and this has been admirably transferred to the canvas. The painting of the hair is masterly in its delicacy and also in its breadth and sureness of effect. The third picture is a portrait of a lady by Thomas Beach, an English painter (1738-1806), who was a pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds. This half-length picture shows very clearly the influence of the master on the pupil. The last of the quartet is an oil painting of a street scene in Ravenna, Italy, by Sir D. Y. Cameron, the eminent Scottish artist. The tranquility and almost ascetic charm of the spot is admirably conveyed. The purchases were made by Mr. John Barr, chief librarian of Auckland, in conjunction with Mr. Leo Myers, of London.