A VAN DER VELDEN

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 18, 5 February 1937, Page 6

A VAN DER VELDEN

Important Acquisition to H.B. Art Gallery UNFINISHED WATER-COLOUR " An important acquisition to the collection of pictures in the Hawke's Bay Art Gallery at Napier has junt been received in the form pf an unfinished water-colour . by Petrus Yan de Velden, who "may he styled as the first painter in New .Zealand to be , wortby of tbe name "old master." This picture has come into the poesession of the Hawke's Bay Art Society through the efforts of the Napier Employees' Progressive Association, a body composed entirely of employees in. the shops and offiees in Napier. During the past few months this energetio body has raised a sufficient sum to provide this gift. The Dutch artist Petrus Van der Velden came to New Zealnd in 1890. He had by then an established ro* putation among his own people, ahd paihtings of his wefre to be found iu most of the galleries of Europe, H} was late in life that he took up painting as a profession. Until "about 30 years of age he was a printer and engraver by trade. While etruggiing for recognition he lived on next to nothing, painting. landscapes and Dutch types along the canals; but about the time when he left Holland he was getting 80 guineas for a watercolour. 1 . On comipg to New Zealand .he set* tled in Christchurch, where for about 20 years his colourful p&rsonality and picturesque appearance made him - a prominent figure. He was a tireless worker, and most of the public coilections in New Zealand are the riclier for possessing examples of his work, while there are many private owners number Van dei Veldens among their treasures. His art was definitely of the Rembrandt school and had an entirely Dutch outlook. Eyerything was made subservieht to * one or two bighlights, and be excelled in the rende'ring of • translucent shadows. He did puro .andscapes in New Zealand, but his. Dutch paintings were mainJy interiors or landscapes with figtures in them. It is perhaps the drawing that is the aipst remarkable feature of Van der Velden' s w.ork and the feature that has most influence on art in New Zealand. There is, in some of his sketches, an almost pre-Raphaelite insistance on detail, while the unity of effect in ihe whole is never- lost. Always he emphasised to his pupils the import,ance of draughtsmanship, and in proparatioa for his own paintings he would make sketch after sketch. Most of Van der Velden's best pio tures were done in Holland before ha came to New Zealand, and he brougbt some of them with him, Kowever, while in New Zealand, hr went to tho West Coast and painted outstanding 'pictures of Otira Gorge and Mt. Rolleston. He made beautifuf drawings of New Zealand trees, but he did few water-colours. After living in Christchurch for some years, Van der Velden went to Sydney. There he found a better max*ket for his pictures and sold "The Sorrowful Future" for £500. Later ha returned to New Zealand and went to live in Wellington"; thence to Auckland, where he died in 1913. After bis death his son took many of his fatlier's paintings to Christchurch, where his best-known wprk, "Tbe Dutch Funeral," hangs in a prominent positioa m tbe . McDougall Arb Gallery.