Editorial

In this issue, together with the usual reviews of contemporary exhibitions, we have included a rather more expanded section on photographers currently exhibiting in Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin. Short articles deal with individual photographers: such as Janet Bayly, Rod Wills, Megan Jenkinson, Paul Gilbert, Peter Peryer, Laurence Aberhardt and Gary Blackman.

There is an article on the sculpture - especially the polychrome bronzes - of Terry Stringer; and a report on the recent Sydney Biennale (to which New Zealand sent a contingent of about fifty artists, writers, art gallery staff and art administrators) by Wystan Curnow.

The main piece in the Theatre section is Brian McNeill's interview with Ngaio Marsh at her hideaway in the Cashmere Hills, above Christchurch. Ms Marsh talks most particularly about her involvement in the theatre, from the 'forties into the 'sixties. In addition, from Wellington, Ian Fraser contributes some pointed Reflections on Style at Downstage.

In response to written questions from Michael Dunn, Ian Scott talks about his Lattice series of canvases; and M.N. Day writes on a pioneer of abstract painting in this country, Wilfred Stanley Wallis, 1891 to 1957.

Michael Dunn examines a motif endemic in the history of painting here in a substantial essay, Frozen Flame and Slain Tree.

From March 1855 until July 1856, the English artist William Strutt spent sixteen months in New Zealand, having purchased a one hundred-acre block of land in Taranaki, ten miles from New Plymouth. Heather Curnow's book, The Life and Art of William Strutt, is to be published later this year in a limited edition by Alister Taylor. In this issue she looks at The New Zealand Paintings of William Strutt, all of which are reproduced with her text.