ROYAL ACADEMY PICTURES.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2522, 24 July 1915, Page 9

ROYAL ACADEMY PICTURES.

"Royal Academy Pictures and Sculpture" (Casscll and Co.) is a liardy annual, ever of interest to art lovers, aud this year's issue (the' twenty-eighth) is no exception to the rule.' Naturally tlio war has caused a terrible disturbance in the art world, there being, it is estimated, some three hundred and odd British artists actually at tho ' front. But Academy exhibitors;' consisting as they mainly do, of men of a certain age, have not been" so directly affected, and although it is clear from the illustrated record of this year's' show that' it is hardly up to those of 'former years in tho interest and value, of the'work exhibited, still most of the' leading Academicians and Associates are represented.- Thero are several- war pictures, but judging by tho reproductions, none of any outstanding merit. Interiors seem to be increasingly in vogue, and there is some fine portraiture. Several artists whoso work has been made familiar to j New Zealauders by the Baillie and other [ exhibitions are represented. (Price 65.) ! "LOOKINC BACKWARD," Under tho title, "Looking Backward," Mrs. Ellen Hewett, "the widow of a New Zealand pioneer settler," published in'-1910. a little, volume of personal reminiscences of her earlier and middle life. A new and cheaper edition of Mrs. Hewett's book.has now been published, OVangamii, H. I. Jones and Son). Mrs. Hewett's husband, who was murdered by a company of Hau Hau Natives during the Maori War, was a well-known and much-respected settler in the Waiigamii district. His widow gives an interesting description of the life led by. the earlier settlers on tho West Coast of this island, a, life of arduous toil tempered by simple and homely amusements; arid her narrative has thuß a real value as affording pictures of the pioneer life which has now passed away. The author; who was a "grandmother at forty and a great-grandmother at fiftysix," is a deeply religious ]ady, and describes certain of her experiences with a simplicity and evident sincerity '•' which . cannot • fail to win' her the respect of the reader. There are portraits of the author, of Colonel Hewett, her father-in-law, and of her husband, who for a time, it may be noted, represented Wanganui in the Wellington Provincial Council, and there is also an illustration of a sword long lost by Colonel Hewett (a Waterloo' veteran)'and found mauy years after- i wards by a Maori woman, in a rata tree; This sword is . now in. .the Hawera Museum. In its new and cheaper formMrs. Hewett's modest but interesting little work should find 1 many new readers. (Price Is. 6d.) *