ART IN INDUSTRY

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 94, 15 January 1935, Page 2

ART IN INDUSTRY

The Prince on Aims of Exhibition BRITISH MOVEMENT The Prince of Wales, who is president of the general committee responsible for the organisation of the Royal Academy Exhibition of British Art in Industry, recently convened a meeting of that body, together with the chairmen of many of the advisory committees connected with it, at St. James s Palace. Welcoming the members, he said the enterprise had had a good start in being jointly inaugurated just two years ago by the Royal Academy and the Royal Society of Arts, and he was specially glad that the first step taken was to go straight to the industries and ask for advisory committees of technical experts with inside knowledge of production and demand. Thus from the beginning the exhibition had enlisted the active good will and energy of manufacturers for its complex organisation ; and it had already gone far to create and increase mutual understanding between them and those artists who had studied the special conditions to which they had to adapt their talents and ideas. Such understanding must be, to the advantage of beta sides and of the public. He hoped that some permanent system would take shape as the result of the exhibition and all the arduous work of its selection and arrangement whereby artists and manufacturers might have more frequent and profitable relations with each other. A year ago, at the dinner of the Royal Society of Arts, he expressed his keen interest in the object of the exhibition, and was very glad that the appeal he then made to manufacturers to give it their energetic support had been so readily answered. The purpose of the exhibition was roughly to emphasise the undoubted fact .that there was available in Great Britain an abundance of excellent design for manufactured goods. . . Everything shown in the exhibition would be of British design and British make, and while some of the articles would necessarily be on the expensive side, care had been taken to show wares in every section which were within the reach of quite modest means The real aim of improving design in industry was to spread greater enjoyment and greater decency in the homes of the broad masses of the people. The necessary guarantees for £15,000 were put up by Fellows of the Royal Society of Arts, which enabled the exhibition to be independent of payments by exhibitors. Mass Production. Sir William Llewellyn, president of the Royal Academy, thanking the Prince for the keen personal interest he had shown in the forthcoming exhibition and for calling the meeting at St. James’s, said that in these days of wonderful machines and the great multiplication of things—cheap and dear—by’ mass production, it was more than ever necessary’ that things should be of good design and well fitted to their purpose, and that ugliness and bad design should be combated on every hand. It seemed therefore imperative that important bodies like the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Academy, both with great history behind them, should take action to stir both industrialists and artists to a true sense of their responsibilities. British workmanship had always been unrivalled, but goods of many kinds failed in artistic attraction, with the result that some other countries, with more appreciation of the commercial value of art, had made profits at our expense. It was to remedy that, as fur as possible, that their endeavours were directed, and by promoting a close co-operation between manufacturers and artists, and educating the public, to lay’ a foundation for a. permanent national policy which in time would bear good fruit. Ultimately the responsibility must rest witli the manufacturers. but they were convinced that unless we could compare artistically with other nations our own and world markets were bound to suffer. Mr. J. A. Milne, chairman of council of the Royal Society of Arts, mentioned that he had received a letter

from the Duke of Connaught regret-, ting that lie could take no part in the * undertaking because of his age and] the necessity for his being an ay from' London all the winter. Help of Manufacturers.

Speaking of the work done in organising the exhibition, Mr. Milne said it was gratifying to be able to say that a large section of manufacturers, trade buyers and other industrialists had shown the utmost interest in connection with the exhibition, as well as a rea.dv willingness to help in making it a success, fully realising the importance of the cause for which it stood. Mr John do la Valette. the hon. organising secretary, giving a general report of the work done in organising the exhibition and its aims, said it would be as much a display of industrial work as an endeavour to rouse a new outlook and bring about a new era in industrial production. The human element was as important as the aesthetic factor, and that accounted for the broad basis of their organisation and the extensive nature of their preparations.