| BRITISH COLUMBIA ARTISTS |
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The Pasovas (please pronounce it Pa-SO-vas, not as if it were
a Jewish feast) Club Exhibition is over, and last week drew
many visitors to the Art Gallery. So varied is the work shown by these artists, who were original students of the Vancouver Art School that one must note it in sections. First the paintings - the two largest pictures are "The Raising of the Totem" by Fred Amess, a vigorous piece of work, but why paint green flesh over a tree, as if the branch ran like a skewer through a man's leg - indeed, why paint the flesh that color at all, unless the man had gangrene? One recommendation inspired by this picture is that a course of anatomy be included in the curriculum of the Art School. The other large picture is "The Dance of Sound," a far better piece of work than Norma Park showed recently in another Exhibition. Here the conception is understandable and the colour tones very beautiful. "Vaucroft Beach" by Sybil Hill Cianci is excellent, but Nos. 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, and 37 in this section are all either dull, weird, or most unpleasing. The painting of a cat by Fred Amess is one of the most revolting animal studies I have ever seen: apparently the cat is impaled on a stick of yellow wood ready for vivisection; in the first place why dissect a cat, and secondly if you are going to dissect it, why paint it? The illuminated verse from Omar Khayyam by Margaret Williams is very beautiful; The "Marionette" studies admirable, specially those for "The Fire Bird" by Beatrice Lennie; in the "Commercial Art" section the skit "Don't overfeed your garbage can" is remarkably clever and amusing; and in "Illustration" the animal studies by Maud Sherman (No. 20) are well drawn. "The Yuculta," also by Miss Sherman, is good and painted after Nature's laws. Madge Farmer's "View from Emerald Lake" would make a capital poster but her arbutus trees in No. 50 are simply not arbutus trees at all. In the Craft Work section the hand-wrought fire-screen, cut out of a single sheet of iron and tooled by Lilias Farley, is a real work of art and most effective; while a lovely tooled leather pouffe by Pindy Tisdall is a thing of joy - I only wish I owned it! So we come to the Pottery section in which Mrs. J.A. Wattie's green lamp (No. 71) fish ash-trays, and a certain small round green bowl are particularly beautiful, and finished with a lovely glaze. Frances V. Gatewood shows among other charming things a smoke-coral lamp, and a yellow and purple vase, both exceptionally fine; and Maud Haywood's lamp-base in rich blues and greens, also other similar pieces, are to be highly commended. Beatrice Lennie's bust of "Colonel Goodland" is powerful, and a splendid thing, but her "Portrait for Stone" of Allan Cameron, shows a wrong conception of the man's outstanding facial characteristics, and lacks evidence of that fining quality which in reality dominates his expression. The Pasovas have given Vancouver a capital Exhibition, and one hopes they will repeat it next year. |