TOE QUEEN AND ART

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 July 1940, Page 6

TOE QUEEN AND ART

MAINTAINING HER INTEREST IN WARTIME.

The Queen is not allowing 1 the gravity of the situation to interrupt her purchase of modern pictures. Her collection becomes more progressive with each new acquisition, comments the "Evening Standard.” Last month she bought a still life by Mr Matthew Smith for £145 from an exhibition at Tooth’s.

Mr Augustus John, who is painting her portrait, saw four of Mr Smith's pictures which he thought would appeal to her Majesty, and had them sent along to Buckingham Palace. The Queen chose the best of the four. Mr Smith, one of the leading English moderns, lives at Aix-en-Provence. He had some difficulty, al the beginning of the war. in getting his pictures into England for sale. Both his sons are fighting in the R.A.F. One, Flight-Lieutenant Dermot Smith, won the D.F.C. a few weeks ago. Not long afterwards he took on a Heinkel over Holland and was wounded in the arm and shoulder. Despite this, iie piloted his airplane safely home. and. with, an agonising effort was able to pull over the controls and land it. A moment after he had left the airplane it burst into flames. He is now in hospital recovering from his wounds.