Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), Tuesday 20 May 1952, page 11


Display

reveals

an artist

By Arnold Shore

An artist is revealed in the Jean Bellette exhibition at the Peter Bray Gallery.

The black and white land-scape (l8) sets the heart singing with its lovely tone, pattern and sense of place.

This is far the best of a sequence of Melbourne shows by Sydney artists shown re-cently.

Oils, water-colors, pastels and black and white studies attain at their best a stan-dard only vaguely suggested when the painter concerned herself too much with striv- ing after a new treatment of ancient Grecian ideals.

Some of these latter are in the show.

They do not compare with the uncatalogued "Essie Resting" which suggests a positive basis of visual ex-perience turned somewhat sketchily, to a truly poetic portrayal of rest, sleep, and dreams.

The color glow of (9) - a frieze like group of figures - makes it one of the best of the imaginative studies.

The worst of these is prob- ly (2) Its water has no level, and the wooden figures are not disturbed.

Some of the drawings have heads that do not rest on hands (23).