Art Authority To Advise Council

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31976, 1 May 1969, Page 16

Art Authority To Advise Council

The head of Australia’s most comprehensive art gallery—the National Gallery of Victoria —Mr Eric Westbrook, arrived in Christchurch yesterday to advise the City Council’s cultural committee on the future of the Robert McDougall Art Gallery.

Mr Westbrook is one of the foremost authorities in the world in the establismment and development of art galleries.

Thirteen years ago he left his post as director of the Auckland Art Gallery to take over direction of the Victorian Arts Centre of which the National Gallery is a part The gallery was opened last August at a cost of $l5 minion. Mr Westbrook wrote the brief for the entire project His satisfaction with it is shared by more than one million visitors to the gallery during its first nine months. Mr Westbrook believes that art galleries should be places where all the people—educated and uneducated, the very young and the elderly—should find something of interest to them.

For that reason he has made the gallery much more than a collection of paintings. It contains works of art in a vast field, including furni-

tore, textiles, glassware and telephones. He estimates the total value of the permanent collection to be about $4O million. One of the great treasures is a self-portrait by Rembrandt which he believes would fetch 8500,000 if it were for sale. NOT FOR SALE Nothing in the gallery is for sale. Much of it has been acquired through substantial bequests and trusts. At the turn of the century an industrialist, Alfred Felton, who made a fortune from pharmaceutical drugs in Australia, established a trust worth £389,000 in 1908 and is still providing spending money of about $lOO,OOO a year for the purchase of works. Mr Westbrook said there had been a tremendous stimulus in interest in the arts in Australia in the last decade. The new wealth derived from mining and oil booms had provided a huge source of money for the development of visual and performing arts. -Australians, had, after 150 years of struggling to build a pleasant living environment, realised that there

were more things in life than football, tennis and surfing. The emergence of world renowned artists in their very midst had prompted them into a greater desire to share the pleasure of lasting beauty. The national gallery is only a part of a $4O million arts complex to be built ih Melbourne as the Victorian Arts Centre. STAFF OF 168

Mr Westbrook has a staff of 168, comprising professional and administrative people who work under the direction of a senior staff committee. In London the gallery retains full-time a collector whose job is to keep abreast of everything that is for sale. Within the gallery is an education department staffed by 11 art teachers supplied by the Victorian Department of Education. Throughout the year they either take children into the gallery or go out to the children in various parts of the state. One hundred voluntary guides show visitors through the gallery and professional staff lecture to students and art groups. The entire upkeep of the gallery and payment of staff salaries is met by the Victorian Government which also makes a small grant—slB,ooo —for the purchase of works of art. The gallery charges for admission and devotes the takings to new purchases and the maintenance of existing works. DIFFERENT TASK

Mr'Westbrook said the collecting of works of art during the last 10 years had become an extremely difficult task because of the presence of private collectors with seemingly unlimited funds in the market. He said that the support of private people receiving special incentives from the Government in tax concessions was the only way in which a satisfactory gallery could be established and maintained. Mr Westbrook will meet representatives of the City Council, art authorities and interested persons before making recommendations about the future of the art gallery in Christchurch.