Art Gallery to Have New Picture

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 31, 6 February 1937, Page 2

Art Gallery to Have New Picture

VAN DER VELDEN WATERCOLOUR (.Special to “Times”) NAPIER, Feb. 5. An important acquisition to the collection of pictures in the Hawke’s Bay Art Gallery at Napier has juat been received iu the form of an unfinished water-colour by Pctrua Van de Velden, who may bo styled as the first painter in New Zealand to bo worthy of tho name “old master.” This picture has come into the possession of tho Hawke’s Bay Art Society through the efforts of the Napier Employees’ Progressive Association, a body composed entirely of employees in the shops and offices in Napier. During the past few months this energetio body has raised a sufficient sum to provide this gift. The Dutch artist Petrus Van de* Velden came to New Zealnd in 1890. Ho had by then an established reputation among his own people, and paintings of his were to be found in most of the galleries of Europe. Ifc was late in life that he took up painting as a profession. Until about 30 years of ago he was a printer and engraver by trade. While struggling for recognition he lived on next to nothing, painting landscapes and Dutch, types along the canals; but about tho time when ho left Holland ho was getting 80 guineas for a watercolour.

On coming to New Zealand he settled in Christchurch, where for about 20 years his colourful personality and picturesque appearance made him a prominent ’figure. Ho was a tireless worker, and most of the public collections in New Zealand are tho richer for possessing examples of his work, while there are many private owners number Van der Veldens among their treasures. His art was definitely of the Rembrandt school and had a,n entirely Dutch outlook. Everything was made subservient to one or two highlights, and he excelled in the rendering of translucent shadows. He » did pure .andscapes in New Zealand, but his Dutch paintings were mainly interiors or landscapes with figtures in them. It is perhaps the drawing that is the most remarkable feature of Van der Velden’s work and the feature that has most influence on art in New Zealand. There is, in some of his skotches, an almost pre-Raphaelite insistence on detail, while the unity of effect in the whole is never lost. Always he emphasised to his pupils the importance of draughtsmanship, and in preparation for his own paintings he would make sketch after sketch. of Van der Velden’s best pictures were done in Holland before he came to New Zealand, and he brought some of them with him. However, while in New Zealand, he wont to tho West Coast and painted outstanding pictures of Otira Gorge and Mt. Roileston. He made beautiful diawings 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 market for his pictures and sold “Tho Sorrowful Future” for £SOO. Later ho returned to New Zealand and went to live in Wellington; thence to Auckland, where he died in 1913. After his death his son took many of his father’s paintings to Christchurch, whera his best-known work, “The Dutch Funeral,” hangs in a prominent position in the McDougall Art Gallery.