MCDOUGALL ART GALLERY

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25435, 5 March 1948, Page 9

MCDOUGALL ART GALLERY

RECOMMENDATION TO CITY COUNCIL

The McDougall Art Gallery was discussed last evening at a meeting of the Canterbury Society of Arts, and it was decided that the advisory committee of the society should recommend to the City Council that an adequate sum should be set aside each year tor the purchase of pictures for the art ga The"City Council would not be likely to buy pictures for the McDougall Art Gallery unless a considerable body of opinion forced it to do so. said speakers. Nothing was done last year about this matter, and something should be included in the estimates this year. "We should send someone along to stir up the City Council about the art gallery,” said the president (Mr A. E. Flower). “It has been lying stagnant for 15 years, and will become a museum piece unless it is kept alive. The Dunedin gallery was well endowed. said Mr A. A. G. Reed, who said that a big sum was available there for buying pictures. He was appalled at the difference between the Dunedin gallery and the McDougall Art Gallery. He suggested that 10s a year be added to society subscriptions to provide a fund for pictures for the gallery. The City Council might then agree to subsidise the fund. “Christchurch has had so much given that independent civic activity never even begins, said Mr R. Wall work. “Let the City Council have the McDougall Art Gallery. We have our own gallery to*look to and £7O spend on it. We need a new galle.y for the society and we want a co }'cc tion of our own. Our present collection is worth something more than £lOOO, and in it there are some works well-worth looking at. Mr Wallwork said that only on.e since the McDougall Art Gallery had been established had the Christchurch City Council hung a new Paj“tin s there, “and this was probably given.