Sale of King’s Portrait

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 255, 25 July 1935, Page 11

Sale of King’s Portrait

Sir, —I am bitterly disappointed at the refusal of the Wellington Technical College Board of Governors to purchase a copy of the portrait of the King. It is not correct that the Returned Soldiers’ Association invited the board to make the purchase. The Disabled Soldiers’ Civil Re-establishment League made the request, and the funds raised by the sale of the picture® are to be used to re-estab-lish disabled men in industry. The picture was reproduced by Raphael Tuck and Sons from the painting by John A. A. Berrie, R.C.A., which was hung in the Royal Academy in 1931. More than 400 of the reproductions have been sold to local bodies, schools, colleges, clubs and other public and semi-public institutions throughout New Zealand. Complimentary references to the pictures have been frequent, and the statement that the Technical College art instructor consider the picture to be of no particular value as a reproduction of a work of art, constitutes the first occasion that disparaging remarks have been made about it. Mr. Ridling said that the picture had only a patriotic appeal, and apparently that is not worth the expenditure of £4/10/-. When it is remembered that this picture is being sold by the Disabled Soldiers’ Civil Re-establishment League for the purpose of raising fund® to _ reestablish in civil life the disabled soldiers of the country, the attitude of the Board of Governors is difficult to understand. Since thp formation of the Re-estab-lishmcnt League, shops have been established in the main centres for the sole purpose of selling the handicrafts produced by disabled men, and factories have also been set up in Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin in which all the employees are disabled men. As a result of the league's activities, work has been found for hundreds of disabled soldiers throughout the country and the copies of the King’s portrait would . provide _ further funds for the continuation of this work. The object of the league is to utilise the remaining economic power of the disabled ex-soldiers in preference to allowing them to remain a charge on the country through the economic pensions system. The efforts of the league should be supported and not discouraged.—l am, etc., W. PERRY, President, N.Z. Returned Soldiers’ Association. Wellington, July 24.