Auckland Art Gallery

AUCKLAND CITY ART GALLERY

QUARTERLY

NUMBER TWELVE— 1960

EDITORIAL

This issue marks the recommencement of
acquiring works of art overseas and several
new acquisitions are reproduced.
REFERENCE LIBRARY

The library continues to grow and we have been fortunate in finding several out of print volumes. This year we have added 238 books.
VISITORS

In late November we had a visit from Mr John Hayes, Assistant Keeper in the London Museum. Having spent nearly a year in New York he gave a lecture on that city.
In February we look forward to a visit from Dr Ursula Hoff, Keeper of Prints and Drawings in the National Gallery of Victoria. She has already agreed to speak to the Associates on our print collection.
GALLERY ASSOCIATES

The usual Christmas party was held on 8 December and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

For 1960 the main aim will be to increase membership and a new brochure is being prepared for wide circulation. All members are asked to make a particular point of personal approaches to their friends. This is by far the most successful way of finding new members. FORTHCOMING EXHIBITIONS
Although plans for 1960 are not quite complete, the following exhibitions have been arranged. New Zealand contemporary painting and sculpture — Australian contemporary painting — 60 Old Master Prints from the Monrad collection and European Painting 1880-1958 in New Zealand private and public collections.

EMILE ANTOINE BOURDELLE (1861-1929),

French

DRAME D'INTERIEUR

Bronze 24 ins

Purchased by the Committee, 1959

The reaction of Antoine Bourdelle to the expressionism of Rodin inaugurated a sculptural style which, in its reassertion of the relationship of sculpture to architecture, is almost unique in the 19i:h and 20th centuries. As Bourdelle himself stated it, ' From the life in the human model the sculptor must pass on to the life in his work, and from that to its setting against an architectural background. That is the great law by which stone can achieve its august destiny in human gestures.'

It is in such works as DRAME D'INTERIEUR that this ' life in his work ' has its greatest significance. These heads of Bourdelle are radiant with an inner life; light flicks and agitates the surface of forms which seem transparent; the tensions here are not those of, this volume opposed to that, but rather (as the name of the mask suggests) the tensions of the soul.

Bourdelle was much impressed by the poetry of Mallarme and the symbolists, and his work has many equivalents, indeed he has been called the symbolist of sculpture.

This is the second work by the master acquired for the collection, the first MADONNA AND CHILD, being a later work is very different in feeling and style: DRAME D'INTERIEUR is possibly closer to the shadow of Rodin that spreads over much of Bourdelle's earlier work.

— H H K

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