Peruvian, Italian art on offer

Press, 28 January 1986, Page 25

Peruvian, Italian art on offer

Two international exhibitions, with costs totalling $lBO,OOO, may be added to the Robert McDougall Art Gallery’s 1986 exhibition list.

They are the Oro del Peru exhibition of Inca treasures and the Canaletto exhibition of works by the Venetian artist, Giovanni Antonio Canal.

The Peruvian show will be in Wellington at the National Gallery during the International Festival of the Arts and has been offered to Christchurch for June 12 to July 13. Thirty-five days showing would cost the gallery $130,425. If 40,000 people visited the exhibition the gallery could expect to recoup that sum and receive another $20,000. The gallery’s director, Mr John Coley, described the exhibition as an attraction for the gallery.

It is a collection of objects, dating from 100 A.D. to the sixteenth cen-

tury, from the Oro del Peru Museum in Lima. The objects include ceremonial knives, crowns, masks, idols, necklaces, vessels and funerary bundles. However, it has been decided that it would not be appropriate to bring to New Zealand a recently excavated and unexposed mummy offered by the museum.

The exhibition has also been offered to Auckland and Dunedin. The Canaletto exhibition, scheduled for August 14 to September 25, has a budget of about $50,000, which the gallery again expects to more than recoup in attendance fees and souvenir sales.

The show is being staged by the Auckland City Art Gallery and features 46 paintings, drawings and etchings by the eighteenth century artist.

The works belong to the Courteauld Institute, London.

This show had a lower budget, but it was still important, Mr Coley said. The Christchurch City Council’s cultural and public relations committee approved the exhibitions yesterday and referred their budgets to the policy and finance committee.

If the gallery does stage the two shows, it will bring to four the international exhibitions in 1986. The others are the Chinese Buried Warriors exhibition and the David Hockney photography exhibition.

The gallery also hopes to show Te Maori in March, 1987. A planned exhibition of paintings of Arthur Boyd has been postponed because of the tight gallery schedule. It will now be staged in 1987. Mr Coley said the heavy schedule would put extra strain on the gallery’s staff. He would ask for temporary staff for eight months.