Need for extra art gallery outlined

Press, 27 October 1982, Page 6

Need for extra art gallery outlined

A plan for an “adjunct gallery” on the Youth Hostel corner of Rolleston Avenue and Worcester Street should be devised by the Christchurch City Council, said the director of the Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Mr John Coley, yesterday. “It would be wonderful to have a private benefactor,” he told the cultural committee. “We could not expect the total cost to be borne by Christchurch ratepayers.” The idea should be considered “before too many years,” said Mr Coley. The Botanic Gardens gallery alone was not designed for the wide range of activities that now occurred in galleries. A new, more visible build-

ing could include a cafeteria, a bookshop, a lecture theatre, and space for travelling exhibitions. The McDougall gallery did not now have the space to present the main part of its collection on long term display. Gallery spaces suited to static display of paintings were now inappropriate. for many forms of contemporary painting and sculpture. Sir Terence McCombs warned that the corner site, owned by the City Council and occupied by the hostel and a car park, was “very jealously guarded” by Inner City Operation Neighbour-, hood, which had opposed nonhousing uses in the inner city residential zone.

The McDougall gallery has often been criticised fob its location, behind the Canterbury Museum and out of public sight except for those wandering through the Botanic Gardens.

But Mr Coley said he was convinced that its position, with other facilities around it, contributed to its relatively high use. The gallery will probably provide temporary storage for art works from the estate of the late Miss Olivia Spencer Bower.

Under terms of her will, the artist’s works are to be sold. Some of them could come to the gallery.

The estate’s trustees will provide storage shelving.