Brett Milder

Meets

Granny’S ‘Art Critic

CAPTAIN Brett Hilder, of the Islands steamer Morinda had the amusing experience of being publicly sneered at because he put 70 of his paintings of Islanders’ heads on exhibition at the Anthony Hordern art gallery in Sydney, on September 12.

The sneerer is described by the Sydney Morning Herald as “our art critic,” and he has been a joy to Herald readers for some time. He is an intensely superior person, whose idea of criticism is to destroy with biting phrases, but who usually gets so snarled up in his own terminology that he produces para graphs like this (taken from the column of critiques in which he slated Hilder): Virtuosity here delights in its own lucidity, as an end in itself. The mind is certainly not at the service of form, the contact with reality is slight, and the romantic atmosphere, in conse quence, appears manufactured. It is a mirage which at times, becomes preten tious . . .

Hilder, whom the gentleman recom mends to attend an art school, never production in paint anything as terrible as “our art critic” produces in English. He said that the best part of Hilder’s paint ings were the frames; but he is one of those who proclaimed Dobell’s caricature of Joshua Smith as pure and noble art !

Brett Hilder need not worry aboift “our art critic.’ His exhibition —opened by Professor Elkin, before a large and friendly gathering on September 12—was flatteringly received by people who like to see something unusual in painting, and a third of the pictures were sold at fair and modest prices before that day ended.