Untitled

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 328, 5 October 1945, Page 24

Sir,-I would like to thank The Listener for its inclusion of the articles on painting, which have appeared in several numbers. But I beg "Barc" to be more patient and tolerant of the New Zealand malcontents and to look humbly at their work. Hanging committees are not infallible. "Barc" writes, "I think the time approaches when the criterion for the inclusion of a painter’s works without much question in a New Zealand Academy Show will be that his work has received hanging space overseas." The effort required to receive hanging space overseas might be used in finding way of showing and having accepted work in New Zealand and in sending overseas exhibitions as well. This is not my idea, but one which might have the goodwill and the support of the public, that the New Zealand Academies, if they must reject, also, hold exhibitions of the rejected paintings. It is for the cultural interest of everyone that the Academies should encourage the natural development of artists, along the many streams which flow from a knowledge of good craftsmanship, and the sheer enjoyment of colour and paint. I received my training in three art schools in New Zealand, without "the eyes and the lily," and I have sympathised with the hard-working and conscien« tious models. "Barc’s" description of the Julian Ashton School suggests that Australian and New Zealand art schools are similar to-day. . Painting is a universal art, subjected to no boundaries. There is material in this country for overseas artists, new and interesting things for them to see and to learn. The winner of the suggested New Zealand Government Art Students’ Travelling Scholarship would train abroad. Could not the United Nations organisation encourage artists whatever their race, who wish to come and live in New Zealand from time ta time; thus create a wider vision for the artist and layman alike.

RITA

COOK

(Christchurch).