THE PUBLIC ART GALLERY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18624, 4 August 1922, Page 4

THE PUBLIC ART GALLERY.

It must have frequently occurred to the members of the community who visit the Public Art Gallery and inspect the highly creditable display of pictures on its walls that it is a singular circumstance that an institution of the kind, open to all within certain hours on every day of the week, should be maintained without any pecuniary aid from the City Council. On his election yesterday as president of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery Society (Incorporated)—a body in which are now combined the Public Art Gallery Trustees and the Otago Art Society—Sir George Fenwick observed that an increase in the private subscriptions which admit to membership and the recognition of the Gallery by an annual grant from the City Council were both to be desired. It is difficult to believe that the number of citizens who, appreciating the importance of art as a factor in the education of the community and realising the value of the collection which has been secured by the joint efforts of the two societies that have in the past interested themselves in the promotion of a love of art in the city, are prepared to contribute to the support of the gallery does not admit of substantial extension. And it is impossible to dispute the validity of the claim that the City Council should make an annual contribution of a liberal amount to the funds of the society. The Art Gallery is in fact, as well as in name, a public institution, and the pictures comprised in it are, as Sir George Fenwick says; virtually the property of the citizens. The principle in virtue of which the Corporation expends, quite rightly, municipal funds in the maintenance of a free public library would be clearly applicable to municipal support of a free public art gallery. The library and the gallery are alike civic assets and financial assistance in the maintenance of the gallery, to the extent of even one-tenth of the amount that is expended upon the library would probably relieve the society of the need of securing revenue through the “adventitious” means, as Sir George Fenwick described them, upon which it has at present to rely. We do not overlook the fact that when the Art Gallery was erected the employment of these “adventitious aids” was directly contemplated and that a portion of the building was expressly constructed in order that revenue might be derived from dances and (entertainments. It may not be until a Town Hall has been erected that’ it will be possible to abandon the use of the Art 'Gallery for important dances, but the risk that, as things are, damage may, perhaps by pure accident, be done to valuable paintings cannot be wholly ignored!.