GESTURE OF FRIENDSHIP

Evening Star, Issue 22571, 12 February 1937, Page 13

GESTURE OF FRIENDSHIP

FEDERAL GOVERNMENTS GIFT OIL PAINTING OF CANBERRA [Pie United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, February 11. ■; The Trade Commissioner for' Australia (Mr R. H. Nesbitt) to-day presented the Board of Trustees of the National Art Gallery and the Dominion Museum with an oil painting of the Federal capital, Canberra, gift of the Commonwealth Government. In the absence of the chairman of the board (the Hoti. M. J. Savage) the deputychairman (Mr T. G. A. Hislop) accepted the gift. • Making the presentation Mr Nesbitt said that last year he had mentioned to his Government the approaching completion of the National Art Gallery and Dominion Museum, and had suggested as a gesture of friendship and kinship in view of the fact that the 'Australian and New Zealand were , closely allied at a crucial time in the Empire’s history the Government might consider presenting the gallery with a picture typical of Australia. In September last Mr Savage, as head cf the New Zealand Government and on behalf of its .people, received the offer of such a picture and had replied that the trustees would he only too pleased to accept it. As a further gesture of friendship, the Australian Government had decided that the painting should he executed by a New Zealand artist then resident in Sydney, Mr Robert Johnson, who was bom in Auckland and received his early artistic education in that city. The subject was the area of the capital of the Commonwealth. He used the word “ area ” advisedly, as the area of Canberra city was 100 square miles.