"A WRETCHED BUILDING”

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11303, 31 August 1922, Page 5

" A WRETCHED BUILDING”

TO STORE WELLINGTON'S ART TREASURES. , EVEN WANGANUI FAR A HEAT? Tho singular thing about tho complaint made by Mr E. W. Hunt, chairman, -at the annual meeting of tho Now Zealand Academy of Fine Arts last night, as to the inadequacy of tho building, was that all present seemed to take it for granted that it was so. Evidently they had got so used to their i-qualid surroundings that they liad forsaken ambition, anti taken refuge in stolid indifference. However, Mr Hunt referred to the fact that the income from the letting of tho rooms was being devoted to a building -fund. It was a wretched room, lie said. It only held the pictures. ;md kept the rain out. It iva- a disgrace to the Empire City that they had such a wretched building as they were now in. When he naw the buildings in Auckland, Christchurch, and other cities—and even little Wanganui with its splendid gallery—lie felt that tho citizens of Wellington .riionhl fed quite ashamed of themselves that they could only produce “such a structure as this.’ 1 It was a matter, not for tho Academy alone, but for the citizens as a whole, and lie hoped they would not delay, because it wn» a reproach on the city. (Applause.)