Portrait of a Flautist

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 811, 11 February 1955, Page 25

Portrait of a Flautist

| EONARD MITCHELL, of Welling- ~ ton, was a surprised man the other day when he received a letter from Hal Missingham, Director of the National Art Gallery of New South Wales, telling him that his portrait of Patricia Nickalls (left), principal flautist of the National Orchestra, had failed to arrive in time to be considered as an entry for the Archibald competition, the richest art prize in this part of the world. This is the fitth year that he has submitted a painting for the Archibald prize. Last year his entry was a portrait of Warwick Braithwaite. He said he couldn’t understand why the present portrait had arrived too late for inclusion in the competition, as it was despatched on a boat which arrived in Sydney 17 days before entries closed on December 31. No New Zealander has yet won the prize, he said, though it is open to entrants from both sides of the Tasman. Patricia Nickalls came from Montreal, Canada, to New Zealand in 1948 to join the National Orchestra as a flautist, and has been with it ever since. She said that the portrait was painted over a fortnight, with sittings of two hours a day and much longer times on the weekends. She is very pleased with the result and considers it a "marvellous’ piece of work. She said she is wearing a black velvet dress with a silver Indian sari draped across her body. The background of the painting is turquoise. "T have a red carnation on my shoulder, silver ear-tings, and the flute, of course, is also silver."