SEA PICTURES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20586, 8 December 1928, Page 27

SEA PICTURES.

THE MACPHERSON COLLECTION. (From Otjr Own Correspondent.) , LONDON, November 2. The first public exhibition of part of the Macph'erson collection of 6ea pictures and prints recently acquired for the nation through the generosity of Sir James Caird was opened at the Guildhall Art Gallery by the Lord Mayor of London, Alderman Sir Charles Batho. Earl Stanhope, chairman of the trustees, who presided, spoke of the national importance of the collection. This country, and still more our £!mpire, had been founded upon the s<»a, he said." and the day our sea-sense tailed us would be the day of the end of the British Empire as we knew it. It was specially appropriate that this first exhibition of the Rational Maritime Museum should be held in that historic spot, the very hub of the British Empire. The exhibition, though partial, was still sufficient to enable those who visited it to realise something of the great possession into which we had come through the generosity of Sir James Caird. It was to the national interest that the <;aps in the collection should be filled. For this money was required; The endowment fund was not nearly -adequate. Far greater sums were needed .to provide the cost of cataloguing and further purchases, and to meet the expenses incident to the settlement of the National Martime Museum as a whole. The collection, an exposition in line and colour of the nation's sea story, will eventually be placed in the Queen's House, Greenwich, which is to be the home (in a few years' time) of a National Maritime Museum., To meet the immediate nublic interest in the pictures, two rooms in the Guildhall Gallery have been put at the disposal of the trustees for the next two months.. In one apartment is displayed a selection of such oil paintings as were already framed. The other contains a selections of prints, most of which have been framed for the purposes of the exhibition. The selection, inevitably, is incomplete, and does not claim to be representative. Of more than 11,000 itemß, it has only been found lossible at present to show "about 250. It is hoped that further exhibitions may be arranged.