CAMERA AND SKETCHBOOK

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 939, 9 August 1957, Page 18

CAMERA AND SKETCHBOOK

SPANISH SKETCHBOOK, by Pietro Annigoni and Alex Sterling; Museum Press, English price 35/-. ‘THIS is a smart book with a scarlet and silver binding that is reminiscent of a family album. It is a record of a rapid tour of Spain made by a fashionable painter and a very good photographer. Drawings and photographs are juxtaposed and the result is as disconcerting as might be expected. It appears from the short introduction that a feeling of rivalry existed between Alex Sterling, the photographer, and Pietro Annigoni, the painter and that we are expected to compare drawings and photographs and even judge which is the better. And in spite of assurances to the contrary it seems that artist and photographer were trying to do the same thing, with different media, of course. This is unfair to Annigoni whose work naturally suffers by being reduced in size and printed in monochrome on_ shiny paper-while Sterling’s photographs are in their element. However, Annigoni is apparently quite happy to have his work presented in this way and he describes himself as "a painter who is scrupulously .careful to achieve the utmost realism possible" (not without very good reason, be it said). ¢ The pictures are ‘all of Spain or Spaniards, and the note on the dust jacket tells us that "Never, one dare say, since Goya has Spain been so brilliantly depicted." I cannot quite bring myself to compare Annigoni’s work with that of Goya, but I will dare say that two men rushing through Spain for three weeks with a camera and sketching materials could certainly have done a great deal worse. But because the photographs are so much more interesting than the drawings I am left with the conviction that the artist would do well to leave it to the camera to achieve the utmost realism possible, using his powers to achieve what the camera cannot even

attempt:

Margaret

Garland