In recent months, Wellington connoisseurs of the visual arts have had much to see, and, judging by the large number of sates made, liked much of what they have seen. So far, Autumn academy sales total £1096. The recent Bodcock show netted over £2200; MacDiarmid—truly a landscape painter par excellence—netted over '£800. and local artists exhibiting in Manners Street during the Festival, added some £500.

Work exhibited lately has been, on the whole, of very high standard, and has ranged from the very successful N.Z. Industrial Design Display and the recent Japanese ceramics showing in the central Gallery, to an exciting little exhibition of Danish prints and an exhibition of water colours by C. D. Barraud. We have seen exhibitions by Douglas Bodcock, Cedric Savage. Douglas MacDiarmid. Arthur McGhie and Peter Mclntyre. The Autumn Exhibition of the Academy of Fine Arts is, of course, now snowing.

What a splendid painter in oils Douglas MacDiarmid is. Every canvas is a delight to the eye: ail are, as Professor Page remarked at the opening, meticulously finished. One of his canvases will grace our National Gallery. MacDiarmid, unlike Peter Mclntyre, gives me the impression of having something to say in every canvas: the latter apes the camera too much. One can see how much he loves the French countrvside, especially the south of France, which is seen so often. After suffering many privations in his early years, MacDiarmid is coming into his own. All will wish him well, I am sure.