SOCIETY OF ARTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20978, 15 September 1931, Page 11

SOCIETY OF ARTS.

t SUCCESS OF PAST YEAR. INCREASE IN MEMBERSHIP. A successful year is reviewed in the report 1o be presented at the 50th annual meeting of members of tho Auckland Society of Arts, to be held on September 29. Tho report states that the annual exhibition, as usual, was the principal feature of tho year, and in addition the Sketch Club exhibition and lectures helped to create a healthy interest in the society. Sixty-five new members were elected. The Governor-General, Lord Bledisloe, and the Lady Bledisloo were present at the private view to members on May 21 and His Excellency opened the exhibition, which was well attended. The standard of the pictures exhibited was well maintained and the works by students were a feature. With the object of encouraging landscape painting in New Zealand Their Excellencies presented a sum of money as a prize for the best design for a medal, and a further sum as an endowment, the interest from which is to be expended in the purchase of a silver medal—from the winning design—to bo awarded annually for the best landscape exhibited at the society's annual exhibition. At the instigation of the society several conferences were held in Wellington with a view to forming a New Zealand Association of Art Soi'ieties. The association was formed and has already done good work in arranging a roster of exhibitions and altering the basis of freight payment on pictures sent to exhibitions. The balance-sheet shows a loss of £5 on the exhibition account and «£62 on the perioral incomo and expenditure account. J'lio property fund income account shows a surplus of £2%, tho net surplus for the year being £229. The property fund now stands at £10,059.