WATERCOLOUR SHOW

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 32, 2 November 1942, Page 2

WATERCOLOUR SHOW

Art Of T. A. McCormack These may not Ibe the happiest days for artists. War is painting the pictures of today in-the grimmest of colours, and the bright side of life is temporarily obscured. It is, however, to the artists in painting and music that the public look for that lightening touch which helps them along the road. Mr. T. A. McCormack, Wellington’s most individual water-colourist, never fails to do his share of the lightening process. His annual show, now being held in his studio, Hill Street, includes some of the 'best work be Ims ever done iu what might be called his “new order.” No dark tones of sombre thought for McCormack. His metier is to catch aud imprison those breathless lights o( high summer, after the verdant glory of spring has departed for yet another season. His rather forbiddiug yet characteristic painting of I\lt. Parnassus, and his impression of that, saw-like ridge at the back of Havelock North, both burnt, into brown barrenness by the heat of February’s sun, are not. pretty pictures, nor are they meant, to be, but they are absolutely characteristic. Two outstanding water-colours are the still lifes. One gem is the vase of llnme-eoloured, star-like arctosis blooms in a glass-like vase upon a table carelessly littered with odd volumes and a dish of fruit. Delicacy of colouring and artistic arrangement are involved in the technical excellence of this desirable picture.

Summer shines pitilessly down upon a boulder-strewn river bed from which (lie winter floods have apparently drained the last, inch of soil, a highlight on one form of erosion. If, as Katisha says, there is beauty in ugliness, here it is. But there is beauty, too, in McCormack's little seascapes. His care in graduating tone colour is exemplified in his treatment of the sen in “Green Seas,” the brilliant little- bit: of Island Bay, the beach scene in Wellington harbour, with the mists hanging low along the distant, shore, nnij tlie tender “White Cloud,” which suggests clouds that, float, and which is not an easy subject to paint. The red seals on half the pictures in the show denote the keenness of discriminating buyers.