"ART IS NEVER EASY"
‘Sir.-Reviewing E. H. McCormick’s excellent book on Frances Hodgkins, The Expatriate, W. B. Sutch says: "Mr. McCormick says, and we can all agree, that New Zealand has not earned the right to be proud of Frances Hodgkins." One knows only too well what the reviewer means-but perhaps it should not be left there. For it is equally evident that New Zealand has done little more towards earning the right to be proud of Katherine Mansfield ... nor, for that matter, of Peter Buck, another notable expatriate .mentioned in the review. Least of all, has our country earned the right to be proud of those writers and artists still living, as best they may, endeavouring to develop their creative powers in face of public apathy. For it is true that a small ‘number of New Zealanders admire the work of Miss Hodgkiris. There would have been, also, a small number willing to support works of Miss Mansfield while she lived-just as there are some \prepared to support our struggling arts today. But these three or four hundred are not New Zealand-their taste is not New Zealand's. In social terms, New Zealand does not even deserve the art it gets: but perhaps those terms are idle-impossible to operate. The response to art-like its cfeation-is individual. Perhaps we should stop using phrases like "the taste of New Zealand" and cease to refer to New Zealand art. There isn’t any-there is only individual creative vision.
LOUIS
JOHNSON
(Wellington).
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19550318.2.12.1
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 816, 18 March 1955, Page 5
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247"ART IS NEVER EASY" New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 816, 18 March 1955, Page 5
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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