Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-03-15

UNUSUAL interest attaches to the exhi-
bition of Australian art which opened
at the Arts Club 2017 street, a
week ago. and will continue week
- longer. This exhibition comprising
about 100 pictures by members of the Australian
Art Association, is, with the exception OF .
group sent in 1924 to the Wembly exhibition,
London, the first representative collection Oh
pictures to leave Australia.
We in this country are almost completely
ignorant of art development and production In
what is to us a far country in the Southern
Hemisphere. AS Herbert Brookes, formerly
commissioner general for Australia IN the
United States, says in the foreword to the
catalogue: The citizens of the United states
of America know of Australians good sports
men and good soldiers. They are not quite so
sure of them as good workers. and they know
nothing whatever about them as artists with
paint and cahyas, though, strange to relate,
they are well acquainted with them IN those
other branches of the arts where vocalists and
musicians and literary folk hold their sway"
Referring, of course, to such singers as Meloa
and such writers as Henry Handel Richardson.
Mary Cecil Allen representing the Australian
Art Association in New York, in her preface to
the catalogue Says that art in Australia is less
than 100 years old but the fact is that 1t has
not been active in Australia for more than half
that time. The Royal Art Society OF New South
Wales was organized only in 1879 and celebrated
its fiftieth anniversary but two years ago.
What surprises the visitor to the present ezhi-
bition, however, is not the youthfulness of the
art set forth, but its conservatism.
1t is difficult to know exactly what sort of
an image one conjures up of places unvislted
bat it is quite certain that such visions are
never commonplace. In other words, We expect
Australia to be very different from the United
States and we more or less astounded to
find that it is not, according to the Australian
Landscape painters whose works are included in
this collection.
It is almost invariable that young countries are
ultra conservative; that it takes old and ripe
civilization, unborrowed from other lands, to
delight in innovation and welcome revolution.
The United States has had its own conservative
period from which, quite lately headlong
plunge was made into the untraditional. There
are of course few examples of modernistic
expression in this Australian show but for the
most part the work shown is representative;
and again, in viewing it, stands in the
rresence of artists whose object apparently was
to set forth things as seen. AS the majority Of
those making this attempt have chosen good
subjects and rendered them skillfully, the result
is by no means displeasing; in fact, to find ones
self in such company again is rather, under
the present circumstances, refreshing. It is
good, sound, serious, engaging art, but for the
most part not brilliant.
There are figures and landscapes. Archie
CoIQuhoun of Victoria shows an excellent self
portrait and a painting of a young woman,
"Gwen' both simple in handling, strong in
effect There is & little of the Manet sugges-
ton in the former, together with evidence Of
command of medium. Family Group" by w.
B. McInnes Of Victoria, is well painted but
essentially traditional. Madame D." by H. 3.
Harrison is somewhat in the same manner, but
more personal-charming.
From South Australia has come painting of
treeless, mountainous country by Hans Heysen,
f mastery work, similar to an extent to the
paintings of the distinguished Scotchman, D. Y.
Cameron, and as good as his best. Bernard L.
Hall director of the National Gallery of Vic
toria, sends an excellent painting of a figure