Making Better Use Of Art Gallery

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28440, 21 November 1957, Page 14

Making Better Use Of Art Gallery

More direct access to the McDougall Art Gallery by the right of way alongside the Canterbury Museum, as suggested by Mr G. C. C. Sandston, is sensible; but citizens should not be satisfied by this alone. Mr Sandston’s hope that the gallery will be enlivened and invigorated by a more progressive policy came appropriately from the president of the Association of Friends of the Museum. The common interests of such institutions are recognised by the Art Galleries and Museums Association of New Zealand. In some centres museums and art galleries are under the same control. Why not in Christchurch, which has no organisation to develoo the services of the McDougall Art Gallery, one of the finest gifts to the city? The Canterbury Museum Trust Board apparently envisages some future association between the museum and the gallery by providing for a link in its new building. Apart from its art advisory committee, the Christchurch City Council (administrator of the gallery) has not the qualified staff nor the special interest to develop a progressive art gallery policy. The Museum Trust Board has members who are interested, and the expansion of the museum’s own collections of fine arts will require more such men. The museum has already established • reputation for popular lectures, which will be enhanced with the opening of its new

lecture theatre, and the McDougall Art Gallery could benefit from a similar policy for introducing art to the people. It would be a simple matter-to appoint a specialist as curator of the museum’s art collections and of the art gallery. He could give and arrange lectures to attract regular audiences to the gallery, arrange loan exhibitions, and organise visits by schools on the museum pattern. The Friends of the Museum and the Canterbury Society of Arts would, no doubt, provide the nucleus of public support. Caretaking staff could serve both institutions. Occasionally the gallery has been used for receptions. It might be suitable for chamber music concerts or solo recitals. It is a public building and should be used as such. What would be the City Council’s attitude to all this? Cr. R. G. Brown, chairman of the council’s art gallery committee, says that improved access would involve gallery policy, which will be reviewed early next year. Even if the council thought it should retain legal control, no objection to delegating management to the museum is apparent. The City Council would not need to match Auckland’s £ 17,000 a year expenditure on its art gallery to arrange special displays, lectures, and education of the young. When citizens realise how greatly civic life could be enriched they would not quarrel with the relatively small expense of a progressive policy.