He Sees What We Paint

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 895, 28 September 1956, Page 25

He Sees What We Paint

HE practice of New Zealand painters steeping themselves in the traditions of European art does not excite much sympathy in P. A. Tomory, director of the Auckland City Art Gallery. Shortly after his arrival from Britain he joined the selection committee for the art exhibition held during the Auckland Festival last May. After working through the material offered, he formed some opinions of New Zealand art which he expresses in his talk, "A First Impression of New Zealand Painting,’ which will be broadcast on Saturday, October 6 (2YC, 840 p.m; 4YC, 10.15 p.m.). Mr. Tomory speaks of a "migratory instinct on the part of the New Zealand artist," which has become a "psychological compulsion" to visit Britain and the

a4 & Continent. One result of this migration has been the delay in the development of a typical New Zealand school of painting, like the now well-established Australian school. But Mr. Tomory believes that during the war, when local painters found themselves isolated from the European tradition, the germ of a New Zealand style emerged. Since then more artists have shown themselves willing to come to terms with the New Zealand scene-not to paint it in terms of European standards of light and colour, soft and mellowed with age, but in the stark and vivid forms of actuality. They have begun to see the relationship between corrugated iron and the pohutukawa tree, and have found typical subjects in the bush and the sea.