Ariists’ Corner

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 351, 11 May 1928, Page 14

Ariists ’ Corner

VICE-REGAL INTEREST IN ) NEW ZEALAND ART. AUCKLAND’S TEMPORARY 1 GALLERY. i 3

'J'HE Auckland Society of Arts’s 47th annual show will be opened by the Governor-General Sir Charles Fergusson, on the evening of May 28. Vice-Regal interest in art in New Zealand is not quite the cursory affair that it is so very often elsewhere. Lady Alice Fergusson was a pupil of the late James Nairn when she resided in Wellington as a girl. At the recent Christchurch Show her Excellency exhibited several sketches which included impressions of Kapiti, Pelorus Sound, and other places she has visited of late.

It will hardly be necessary for the Governor-General to turn to the Encyclopaedia Britannica for Information —as Lord Jellicoe confessed he did prior to opening the Wellington show on one occasion during his term of office.

It is early yet to express any opinion as to the quality of the work that will •adorn the walls of the Auckland exhibition this year. The pictures are still being received. One thing, however, is certain—the Canterbury contingent, as before, will be in full force.

The society will be under a distinct disadvantage this year inasmuch as the show will not take place in their old gallery. The exhibition will be housed in the Dilworth Buildings. This necessitates taking several rooms, and hanging will not be a simple matter by any means. An absentee from this year's exhi-

bition will be Mr. Page Rowe, a member of the council, and a keen and enthusiastic worker, during his comparatively short stay in Auckland, for every form of cultural expression in this city. The inception of the

.sketch club in con-

junction with the Society of Arts is a monument to Mr. Rowe’s energy. Colleagues on the council, at the invitation of Mr. A. S. Boyd, the president, will meet on Monday to farewell Mr. Rowe prior to his departure for England, where he will reside in future.

Canada was more satisfactorily represented at the exhibition of Dominions’ art at the Imperial Gallery in London last month than either the Free State or New Zealand. The works from Australia and South Africa did not arrive in time for the opening. The New Zealanders, according to the “Morning Post’s” critic, curiously enough, did not show the keenness of observation of the Canadians. Their handling was tentative rather than robust. Water colours by Nugent Welch, Kathleen Salmond, A. E. Baxter, Mabel Hill and W. Menzies Gibb were considered “quite English and charming,” but the works in oils less attractive.

Some announcement in connection with the Society of Arts’ negotiations with the Auckland University College for the new exhibition hall may be looked for before long. A site for the building, it is believed, has been under consideration for some time.

Miss Ethel S. Jones, of Auckland, has presented her native Ashburton •with a large canvas painted in her student days in Canterbury. The subject, an old earth cabin with a thatched roof, has peculiar historic associations for Ashburton, as it was the home of one of the Canterbury pioneers for many years. The picture may form the nucleus of an art collection for the Southern town, which recently celebrated its jubilee. Smaller towns than Ashburton have their permanent collections in Australia. When Castlemaine, in Victoria, appealed for pictures, Dame Nellie Melba, Hans Heysen, the Lindsays, as well as well-known Melbourne collectors, all made donations. * * * Only one new work was purchased for the Auckland Callery during the year. “The Dress Circle, Kawhatau Valley,” in oils, now on view in the gallery, is from the brush of W. Robert Johnson, the Aucklander, who is now busily preparing for his second show in Sydney. —ERIC RAMSDEN.