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On the Monday, 19 March one of the most important exhibition to tour New Zealand will open at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery.

The exhibition, The State of California Painting, organised by the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery and sponsored by the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council of New Zealand, consists of 32 California artists represented by one work each. The works, dating from 1966 to the present, delineate a cross section of California painting of the present. Represented will be examples of the new realist movement which include Robert Cottingham, Richard McLean, Ralph Goings among others, plastic work by Jerry Ballaine, Peter Alexander, Ron Cooper, Ron Davis, Ed Moses and others, painterly abstraction by Richard Diebenkorn, Sam Francis, John Altoon, Jack Bath and Tom Holland as well as hard edge abstraction by James de France and John McLaughlin. Artists representing the unclassifiable aspects of the individual California scene will be William T. Wiley, Ed Ruscha, Kenneth Price, Robert Irwin, Roy de Forest and Terry Allen. In addition, Laddie John Dill is represented by one of his beautiful neon light paintings.

The State of California Painting exhibition is a most representative example of current trends in painting in California and wider range could hardly be possible. The individuality of the works reflect the individual nature of the California lifestyle and no attempt has been made to represent a school of painting but to display a true cross section of styles, attitudes, methods and materials.

The individual works were chosen by Mr Michael Walls of Los Angeles after he and the Director of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Mr Robert Ballard, himself an expatriate Californian from San Francisco, came to an agreement as to what artists to invite. Mr Walls, a private dealer in Los Angeles and one of the most knowledgeable figures in contemporary California painting, has chosen important works from each artist.