ARTS YEAR BOOK

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 449, 30 January 1948, Page 5

ARTS YEAR BOOK

Sir-It is disheartening that The Listener should so far depart from the standard which it has taught its readers to expect as to give an important publication like the Arts Year Book to a reviewer who by her own admission is not equipped to write ecciousiy: about painting. . The Arts Wie Book is important because it reproduces a large number of works by living painters and is the only

publication in the country which does s@ (its other contents are relatively of minor interest), and we may justly ask that The Listener, to which we look for informed criticism, should entrust it for review to someone who is capable of writing about them with authority. It is not helpful to write, for example, that "the collection as a whole can stand comparison with any similar collece. tion from overseas." For this can only mean that the work reproduced in the Year Book can stand comparison with a. similar collection of work by the best living French or English or Russian or American or Austra« lian painters-let us say, to keep to the French and English, since their names are familiar, Matisse, Rouault, Braque, Derain, Picasso, Segonzac, etc., or Sit William Nicholson, Duncan Grant} Matthew Smith, Stanley Spencer, Saud Jones, Victor Pasmore, etc, Are we to understand that your reviewer would seriously maintain this?

CHARLES

BRASCH

(Dunedin).

(Mrs. Andrews makes this reply: .°"Mr, Brasch is entitled to form his own’ opinion of my qualifications as a reviewer of the Arts Year Book. He is also entitled, as con science permits, to read into ohe sentence, wrenched from its context,)a meaning which I did not intend.) Sir-The fact that New Zealand is the best-fed country in the world does not necessarily mean (as your review suggests) that all New Zealanders are adequately fed. The disease that goes with both Maori and Pakeha shacks in the King Country exemplifies this, _ Contentment arising from physical well-being is natural enough, and any lack of awareness will be surely decried by each and every aspirant in the arts. However, only the true artist is capable of placing the greater part of the blame on his fellow artists for their besetting

weakness of catering for the lowest whether the medium is words, music, art, film or illustration. As in all groups the, slack followers are those who produce decadence. It cannot be disputed, though, that vital, honest, and capable work was offered in the last exhibition by McCormack, Henderson, Campbell, Taylor, Hassal, Lee Johnston, Fleming, Page, Mourant, Deans, and Miller, all of whom have more or less of the "lusty" spirit of this country. Many artists, of course, work in the.other fields of linocuts or portraiture, such as Barc, Weeks, © Rhind, McClennan, Clark, and Hipkins. But the work of these people, illustrated in the Arts Year Book, and largely rep- . resented in the exhibitions, was more often than not left unsold while the easy and comparatively poor landscapes showed the red stickers. \ However, art in New Zealand hag arrived; it is a fact, not something to be piously hoped for and left unsold. But it is illogical to argue against sélectivity (the choice of the aristocrat) after havying made the plea for more original work. ty The Year Book, I hope, will continue the policy of the 1947 issue-to select good work, not merely to "foster" what grows in "shady corners." The explicit conviction of critical selection, plea from J. C. Beaglehole, is what has yet to be realised. ~ ;

PATRICIA S.

FRY

(Wellington) .