ART IN OTAGO

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 466, 28 May 1948, Page 5

ART IN OTAGO

Sir,-If Mr. Brasch’s elevation to the tank of editor has gone to his head, it is a pity that you, sir, as editor of The Listener, should provide him with the opportunity of displaying his unbalanced and immature judgments on the book A Century of Art in Otago. In the first place, the length of the review was out of all proportion to the relative importance of the book as a literary effort. Indeed it appears to have been made the pretext for a lengthy expression of opinion by a self-appointed critic about art in general and Colin McCahon in particular. Mr. Brasch may hold any opinions he likes about McCahon’s position in Art in Otago-I am completely indifferent to them. Mr. Brasch may deem "lamentable" the literary qualities of my written work, from which, Heaven knows, I do not claim my standing as an artist-and again I am completely

indifferent. But it was lamentable indeed that his angry difference of opinion should have led him to the immoderate and discourteous statements that you allowed to go into print. The wise discrimination that you could have shown, as an experienced editor, would. have protected those who, along with me, put in so much honest work with so little expectation of reward. This w&s no literary essay, to be judged by hardened critics, but the straightforward, unpretentious record of the events of a century. It was a task arduous and essentially altruistic. As such it should have been reviewed. As such it might even have been commended. But to have done so, the reviewer would require to possess the decent qualities of understanding and generosity. In both, Mr. Brasch has shown bimself lamentably deficient.

H. V.

MILLER

(Dunedin).

(Our duty was to give the book-to a reviewer competent to pass judgment on it. To change what he said about it, even though our purpose was to temper the wind to the shorn lamb, would have been improper.-Ed.)