FAMOUS PICTURES

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 148, 18 March 1939, Page 13

FAMOUS PICTURES

Exhibition Of Facsimilies

TRIBUTE TO CARNEGIE

CORPORATION

Entering the National Art Gallery last evening, the gaze of the guests of the New Zealand Academy of l‘ iue Arts was arrested by a glorious pageantry of art which takes in a review of painting for the last 000 years, perhaps not quite complete, but a revelation to most of those who, have not ventured ■beyond New Zealand’s shores. . The pictures form a collection of facsimilies of famous paintings representative of the schools of France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Italy, Spain, with a few English and American reproductions. Such a group of reproductions has never been seen in New Zealand before, and once more it is to the Carnegie Corporation of New York that the Dominion is indebted for this fine cultural gesture. This was made known by Mr. D. A. Ewen, who occupied the chair during the opening ceremony. He stated that the exhibition was to have been opened by Professor T..A. Hunter, but because of indisposition that gentleman had appointed Professor W. 11. Gould as his deputy. Professor Gould said that few people were aware of the vast indebtedness New Zealand had to the Carnegie Corporation, aud what it had done for educational and cultural progress in this country. Many knew, however, the wonderful aid it had been to the public libraries of this country in the bestowal of many grants. Then there were the handsome grants to the libraries of the university colleges of New Zealand, and, thanks to the corporation, the library at Victoria College was now one which could be shown without hanging one’s bead. The tale of the corporation’s munificence would be incomplete without mention of its grants to the Council of Educational Research, the W.E.A. (during the depression) and the many travellers’ grants which had enabled students to visit America and Europe, and students from America and Europe to visit New Zealand. There was, too, the magnificent grant of £lO,OOO to the museums, part of which went to restore the Napier Museum destroyed in the earthquake. And now they had this magnificent gift of these fine pictures. This, of course, was a gift to the nation and was to be used as an uplift to the cultural life of the whole country.

Mr. T. D. H. Hall read a very interesting and instructive paper upon the craft of reproduction, which was highly skilled. For example, he said that in the case of very expensive French reproductions the colour was applied by artists, but even where mechanical means were employed great skill was required of the operatives. Processes of reproduction had improved, and their value was now generally recognized. He mentioned the good work done by Mrs. Murray Fuller in preparing the tentative lists. The collection was not .complete, aud they were arranging to secure further representation of the British school, and French painting of the last 50 years. At the conclusion of the opening ceremony the guests dispersed to view the pictures, and later to partake of a generous supper in the banquet hall. The exhibition will be open for inspection from 10 a.m. to 5 'p.m. on weekdays, as weir as from 7 to 9.30 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and on Sundays from 2 to 5 p.m. Short talks on the schools of painting will be given on Tuesday nights, beginning at 8 o’clock. “The French School” will be dealt with, by Mr. A. D. Carbery next Tuesday; he will be succeeded on the following Tuesdays by Mr. W. S. Wauchop, “The Post-Impressionists,” and Mr. Roland Hipkins, “The Italian Primitives.” 1