DOI Heft:
No. 369 (December 19239
DOI Artikel:Fry, Edith M.: Australian art at Burlington House, the exhibition of the society of artists
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21398#0344
AUSTRALIAN ART AT BURLING-
TON HOUSE. THE EXHIBITION
OF THE SOCIETY OF ARTISTS.
BY EDITH M. FRY. 000
IN order to arrive at a true appreciation
of this exhibition, one must frankly admit
its limitations, conditioned by the regula-
tion which confined it to work actually
executed in Australia. G. W. Lambert,
John Longstaff and Thea Proctor were
included merely through the accident of
their return to Australia last year. The
portraits of the late E. Phillips Fox and
the late Hugh Ramsay (two artists who
derived much of their inspiration from
Paris) have, unhappily, only a retrospective
interest. But if work by Rupert Bunny,
George Coates, Isaac Cohen, Bessie David-
son, K. McKay Edmunds, Agnes Goodsir,
Bessie Gibson, Bess Norriss, James Quinn
and others had been admitted, the rela-
tively weak portrait section would have
been brought well up to the level of the
landscape. The latter, again, would have
gained considerably by the inclusion cf
painters like Charles Bryant, Arthur Bur-
gess, Sidney Long, Dora Meeson and
James F. Scott, and a stronger showing by
Blamire Young. As for genre painters,Tom
Roberts was not represented at all, and
H. S. Power had only one exhibit. No
sculpture was shown, though the names of
Sir Bertram MacKennal and Harold
Parker (both Australians) stand at the head
of their profession. 0000
The object of the promoters of the
exhibition, however, was evidently not so
much to demonstrate, by the strongest
possible collective effort, what Australians
of this generation are doing, as to focus
attention upon, and present for criticism,
the work that is being produced in Aus-
tralia, as far away as may be from the in-
fluences which are agitating the art world
of Europe. Of the general average of this
the artists concerned have every reason to
be proud, and the extent of their achieve-
ment can only be realised by one who
understands the difficulties under which
“ THE WAGON.” PENCIL DRAWING
BY G. W. LAMBERT. (Exhibition of
Australian Art, Royal Academy, 1923)
324
TON HOUSE. THE EXHIBITION
OF THE SOCIETY OF ARTISTS.
BY EDITH M. FRY. 000
IN order to arrive at a true appreciation
of this exhibition, one must frankly admit
its limitations, conditioned by the regula-
tion which confined it to work actually
executed in Australia. G. W. Lambert,
John Longstaff and Thea Proctor were
included merely through the accident of
their return to Australia last year. The
portraits of the late E. Phillips Fox and
the late Hugh Ramsay (two artists who
derived much of their inspiration from
Paris) have, unhappily, only a retrospective
interest. But if work by Rupert Bunny,
George Coates, Isaac Cohen, Bessie David-
son, K. McKay Edmunds, Agnes Goodsir,
Bessie Gibson, Bess Norriss, James Quinn
and others had been admitted, the rela-
tively weak portrait section would have
been brought well up to the level of the
landscape. The latter, again, would have
gained considerably by the inclusion cf
painters like Charles Bryant, Arthur Bur-
gess, Sidney Long, Dora Meeson and
James F. Scott, and a stronger showing by
Blamire Young. As for genre painters,Tom
Roberts was not represented at all, and
H. S. Power had only one exhibit. No
sculpture was shown, though the names of
Sir Bertram MacKennal and Harold
Parker (both Australians) stand at the head
of their profession. 0000
The object of the promoters of the
exhibition, however, was evidently not so
much to demonstrate, by the strongest
possible collective effort, what Australians
of this generation are doing, as to focus
attention upon, and present for criticism,
the work that is being produced in Aus-
tralia, as far away as may be from the in-
fluences which are agitating the art world
of Europe. Of the general average of this
the artists concerned have every reason to
be proud, and the extent of their achieve-
ment can only be realised by one who
understands the difficulties under which
“ THE WAGON.” PENCIL DRAWING
BY G. W. LAMBERT. (Exhibition of
Australian Art, Royal Academy, 1923)
324