AUSTRALIA'S WAR PICTURES

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 257, 25 July 1919, Page 8

AUSTRALIA'S WAR PICTURES

AN AimSTS' GO-AS-YOU-PLEASE.' Mystery enfolds the conditions under which the wnr pictures have been painted for the federal Government i'or inclusion in the Australian war records (says the Melbourne "Age"). Last year the 'Koyal British Colonial Society of Artists, in conjunction with the Society of Australian Artists, held in London a "war and peace" exhibition, at which we're shown some of the war pictures painted for the I'ederal Government. The catalogue now available reveals one surprising fact—the- great number of paintings and skotches on which the selected artists have- 'beeu engaged. The idea of a collection of war pictures painted by Australian artists and recording" heroic deeds of the Australians is in it-self an excellent one, (but on tho evidence of the catalogue of the pictures shown at t'he particular exhibition, it would appear to have been earned to an extravagant length. In one gnillery alone the number of works shown by Lieutenant G. W. Lambert, the official artist, runs to 109. One-third, of these are specified, as pencil sketches, and tho presumption must bo Hint the balance consists of paintings in oil or water colour. A further presumption is that from the sketches will be painted many other pictures. Forty-one pictures in this gallery "re credited to Lieutenant A. M. fullwood, and 28 to Lieutenant A. Streeton, while in another gallery nearly two hundred works arc listed as "war pictures, painted for and lent by the Government of Australia and tho Australian War JJecords section." in m> introduction to the catalogue the Koyal British Colonial Society of Artists "acknowledges with thanks the cordial support it has received from the government of the Commonwealth." All of which i≤ suggestive of a heavy expenditure of public money, not on a number of great pictures by fine' artists, but on a bip collection of minor works, ivow, the questions are the amount of the mil and to what extent tho wishes of llie 'Federal Ministry were definite, or to what extent the High Commissioner, or anybody else, was given a free hand to spon-l money on pictures—any number or any quality-as lons as they were war pictures?" Provision is to be made on Hie next estimates to meet the bill. In tho meantime the Aetiiiß-Prmio Minister should clean up the mystery, and inform the taxpayers exactly how much has beeu, and is being, spent and on what. Present, indications are that such a col'.ection is lieimi formed and paid lor as might well appal the most: enthusiastic patron of art.