Child Artists of the Australian Bush. By Mary Durack Miller
in association with Florence Rutter. (Harrap. 15s.) THE black children whose paintings and drawings are reproduced here were orphans, " some born here at Carrolup, some in the Bush, some in the hovels on the rubbish-tips of country towns. All over Australia there are groups of children like these." Mary Durack Miller records in this book an experiment made by Mr. and Mrs. White and Mrs. Florence Rutter in encouraging a group of thirty or forty of them to express themselves through drawing. The result on the children seems to have been wholly admirable, and it is sad to read that the experiment has not been continued. The pictures they produced are very attractive, but, not unnaturally with such children (who had neither the aboriginal tradition nor the white man's tradition), the influence of their teacher is strong, sb that the work of one child is almost indistinguishable from that of another, while they lack the vigour and (sometimes sinister) intensity of Aus- tralian " native " art. But no one who has even a passing acquaintance with the strange light and landscape 6f Western Australia can fail to be impressed by the way in which its spirit has been caught, or by the remark- able technical competence of the children. We can echo the author's hope " that the story of these lost young artists will assist in establishing a firmer educational foun- dation for all native children." A. W. E.
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