Title

Water Colors and Prints. Talent of Miss Ethel Spowers. New Formalism.

Author

Young, Blamire.

Source

Herald (Melbourne) 3 January 1840 - 5 October 1990.

Details

27 November 1933, page 12.

Publication date

27 November 1933

Type

Exhibition review

Language

English

Country of context

Australia

Subject category

Australia, Art style: Grosvenor school linocuts

Full text

WATER COLOURS

AND PRINTS

Talent of Miss Ethel

Spowers

NEW FORMALISM

By Blamire Young, The Herald Art

Critic.

The cultured attitude of Europe

is reflected in the water colors and

prints of Miss Ethel Spowers, and

when she applies it to stark naturalism

of a Gippsland farm (4) she is delight-

tul and entertaining.

For pictorial purposes she is obliged

to compress her acreage, and by so

doing the buildings, so well understood,

seem to occupy more than their share

of the paddocks in which they stand.

One notes that very few trees are left

by the farmer, in his endeavor to get

all he can from his farm, and his ob-

vious intention to cut down the tree

on the right is only justified by the

fact that it is dead.

This picture is in oils, and is the only

one in that medium that is as interest-

ing as the water colors.

The water colors deal with family

subjects, in designs that are put to-

gether with a great deal of thought.

They are slightly archaic in their man-

ner and pleasant in their color.

The color prints lend themselves

kindly to Miss Spowers' rather precious

method, and where the arrangement is

successful, as it is in "still-life (14) the

result is delightful. In fact the color

print of the China Fawn is a more satis-

factory treatment of the subject than

the rendering of the same in oil.

The artist's position seems at the mo-

ment to be embarrassed by too much

consideration of current ideas. She

has so much talent of her own that she

could well afford to follow her indi-

vidual preferences, and release herself

from the limitations that research in-

variably imposes upon those who prac-

tise it.

This interesting show is to be seen

at Everyman's Library, 332 Collins

Street. It will close on December 9.

The Herald (Melbourne), 27 November 1933, page 12