ART IN EUROPE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 December 1938, Page 6

ART IN EUROPE

CRAZE FOR CUBES & PRISMS DYING. NEW ZEALAND PAINTER’S OBSERVATIONS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON. This Day. Modern artists who have not adopted extremist ideas can command good „ prices for their works. The craze for expression through cubes and prisms is dying away. Cubist art had an influence, particularly on architecture, but the phase had passed. These were the statements of ' Mr Sidney Thompson, a Christchurch artist, who has been abroad for fifteen months studying Continental art. He was commissioned by the McDougall Art Gallery, Christchurch, to purchase a picture, but found that works of modern artists of standing commanded prices well beyond the amount at his disposal. Painters in Europe, however, were not having a prosperous time, war scares having ruined their market. People realised that they might have to leave their homes at a moment's notice. The commission he received to purchase a picture arose out of a bequest made by a German girl who was a cook in Christchurch. She spent all her spare time attending art galleries and left all her money, about £2OO, for the purchase of a picture, so that other people could get more pleasure out of- life.