BRIGHT DISPLAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 271, 15 November 1937, Page 17

BRIGHT DISPLAY.

THE ART GALLERY.

PICTURES NEWLY HUNG. GREAT IMPROVEMENT MADE. What has happened at the Art Gallery? This will be the first question everyone who goes to the gallery now will ask on first entering its doors. There is a new atmosphere of freshness spaciousness, brightness and orderliness about the place, which somehow, was lacking before. The answer is that, under the direction of the city librarian, Mr. John Barr, the pictures have been entirely rearranged. Fewer pictures have been hung, but those that have are much better displayed.

For some time, explained Mr. Barr, it had been realised that the gallery was over-crowded. Too many pictures were on the walls to allow justice being done either to the work or to the artist. This fact was brought forcibly before the notice of the authorities when the last loan collection was hung—that of contemporary British artists. In displaying that collection, an experiment was tried. More space between each picture was allowed, and in no case was one work placed above another. The result showed that the individual method of banging pictures' added to the visitor's appreciation of them. Each work was given an identity. Its individuality was not merged with that of all the others which crowded in so closely.

A Lesson Learned. The contrast between the old and the new method, Mr. Barr said, was so striking that he, the library committee of the Auckland City Council and the Mackelvie trustees, determined to observe, as far as possible, the same principle when the gallery's own pictures were replaced. Unfortunately, the space available in comparison with the number of pictures was too limited to permit of the method being followed exactly, but a compromise was reached. It is this compromise which focuses the attention immediately the gallery is entered.

In some cases one picture has been hung above another, but where this has happened the pictures have been small, so that their combined height is not more than that of a moderately large canvas. For example, on one wall, where formerly there were seven pictures, there are now only three. In every case there is more space between the pictures, whatever their size.

The result is all the difference between the old-fashioned drawing room stuffed full of all sorts of knick-knacks and odds and ends of furniture and the new room with very little adornments, and those good and well-choeen. The visitor does not feel stifled when he looks at a wall. He can see each picture clearly and plainly, and it does not require an effort to separate one picture from the next.

The location of certain pictures, too, has been changed. The British and foreign section has been shifted to the room previously occupied by New Zealand works, the intention having been to keep the latter together, where previously they had been separated. Incidentally the New Zealand section deserves special comment. One feels that, with the special care taken with the hanging, New Zealand art has attained a new dignity. More space has been devoted to it. It has been made more representative.

The Water Colour Section. In the water colour section, for example, at least one work of every New Zealand artist whose work is in the gallery has been hung. An exception has been made in the case of Frances Hodgkins, who has four pictures there. It was felt, however, that this artist, who approaches world class, deserved this prominence.

Then, too, there is one wall on which 13 pictures in oils by New Zealand artists have been placed. These are truly representative works, and they, and the water colours, will give visitors a new idea of the work done by the artists of the Dominion.

In all, between one-third and one-half of the pictures previously in the gallery have been removed, but they will not be put in a storeroom and forgotten. Ever so often the selection of pictures on the walls will be changed, and those in the storerooms hung in their turn. The fact that, in order to give the pictures in the gallery the best facilities, eo many have had to be taken down is a cogent argument of the need in Auckland for a new gallery.