IF WAR HAD COME

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 80, 1 October 1938, Page 10

IF WAR HAD COME

ART WOULD HAVE

GONE

ACADEMY OPENING

What war would have meant to art and culture was briefly referred to by his Excellency the Governor-General, Lord Galway, when'he opened the fiftieth annual exhibition of the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts last) night I As recently as the last forty-eight hours, he said, we had been living in a time of great apprehension, but the clouds had now lifted. It was unthinkable what would have happened to the art ana culture of Europe had war broken out. Not only might thousands ;' of lives have been lost through air raids, but such buildings as Westminster Abbey and th National Gallery might have been destroyed, and such places could never be replaced in the cultured life of the community. There was not only London; there was ; Paris with its Louvre and other art treasures; there was Italy, with Rome, Venice, and Florence. The mind could hardly conceive of these art centres being ruthlessly destroyed. But with the pacification of Europe it was to be hoped that all danger was past, that men and women of culture would once more be free to roam from one art centre to another, and that a happier time was coming in which culture would play a predominant part His Excellency said that it gave him and Lady Galway the greatest pleasure to be present on the occasion of the academy's jubilee exhibition, and he congratulated the academy upon its attainments. He would also specially congratulate art in New Zealand on the honour recently conferred upon Mrs. Elizabeth Kelly. The honour awarded her should spur on others and stimulate a still wider interest in Mr. G. G. G. Watson, the academy's president, referred to the lively interest taken in art by his Excellency ever since he had been in New Zealand. It was during such, a crisis as the one they had just passed through that they realised to the full the value of their association with the Crown of Great Britain and they appreciated all the more the presence of his Majesty's representative. They would all feel relief and gratitude at the turn events had taken during the last twenty<-four hours, and they would all be filled with admiration for his Majesty's advisers in their successful striving for peace, and in particular for the tireless efforts of Mr. Chamberlain. IMPORTANT MILESTONE. Mr. Watson referred to the present exhibition as an important milestone in the academy's history. The academy had been founded by a small band of enthusiasts, and their work had been admirably carried on down the years. For many years the academy provided Wellington with its only public art gallery,- and it had been instrumental in selling £20,000 worth of pictures to the public. That is what it had done for the artists. Furthermore, it had been instrumental in building up the national collection of pictures and in bringing to fruition the scheme which had resulted in the present magnificent building. The academy's had been no mean achievement: it had not failed in things material, and it had not-failed in things artistic and cultural. With further support it might do even more and bring art and culture to an even wider circle. An innovation at the opening ceremony, which was attended by a record crowd, was the drawing of the members' art union, and the lucky winners, if present were enabled to select their pictures forthwith. ; It was als<> announced that the academy had purchased four of the pictures for the national collection. These were a landscape in oils by Mrs. Elizabeth Kelly, C.8.E., a watercolour by T. A. McCormack, a portrait study by A. H. O'Keefe, and a watercolour by James Cook.