NEWS from one hundred years ago: YOUNG SOLDIER ARTISTS

A columnist in the New Zealand Truth talks today about a three-man show at a gallery in Wellington. The exhibition is ‘attracting well-merited attention from Wellington art lovers.’ The artists are returned servicemen: W Robert Johnson, Francis McCracken and John Weeks. ‘Although the three are all young men, let it be said that their work is surprisingly mature. More important to the purist in art, their work, modern in the handling, is free from tiresome mannerisms and affectations.’ The oils and watercolours in the exhibition show either scenes of the wartime western front or bucolic landscapes. The artists in their war paintings ‘have concentrated on finding beauty and poetry amidst the carnage.’ All three artists will become celebrated in interwar New Zealand and Australia.

New Zealand Truth, 06 November 1920