“NOT DESIRABLE"

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 750, 24 August 1929, Page 12

“NOT DESIRABLE"

COUNCIL’S ASSOCIATION WITH CULTURAL BODIES INDEPENDENT ART GALLERY Arguing that the City Council should not associate itself with the scheme put forward for the joint housing of the various cultural bodies of Auckland, a correspondent, signing himself “Brangwyn,” has written to The Sun as follows: Sir,The announcement that a conference is to take place between the Library Committee of the City Council and representatives of the University College Council indicates that the proposal recently put forward on behalf of the latter body is at least being “toyed” with by the City Council. This proposal covers the joint housing of the City Art Gallery, the Fine Arts Department of the University, the Flam School-of Art, the Society of Arts and the Little Theatre Society. From the silence of your usual army of correspondents it would appear that the importance of this movement has not been generally recognised, which is regrettable, for it is an attempt to introduce the modern commercial fetish of centralisation into purely cultural movements and to involve a local governing body in activities hitherto considered beyond its official function. Auckland is possessed of a collection of pictures in which a city of this size might well take pride, but in the present Art Gallery has not sufficient space to hang them. Furthermore, the gallery is* damp and exhibits are consequently exposed to risks that should not obtain in a building of the kind. Again, as a minor fault, the system of lighting is not as efficient as modern treatment could make it. The present building is also unsuitable in that it provides no space for loan exhibitions. These exhibitions nowadays constitute an important feature of Art Gallery management, and with proper facilities for their housing, we should probably see the best pictures from other New Zealand galleries, both public and private, as well as loan collections from Australia and even from farther overseas. Finally, the fact that the Public Library is also housed in the same building and urgently requires more space, makes the settlement of the future of, the Art Gallery a matter of pressing need. With this need the City Council endeavoured to cope when it included an Art Gallery in the Civic Centre scheme four years ago, and the congestion both in the Art Gallery and in the library has been growing daily more acute ever since. It is not to be wondered, therefore, that institutions of a semi-public nature with ends of their own to serve, should regard the Art Gallery as a useful stalking horse to cover a raid on the civic purse. Flow, since the City Council is neither concerned with education nor with the histrionic art the Society of Arts is clearly the only body mentioned in the proposal with which the council has anything in common. The object of the society which is to encourage local artists, could very well be served in a gallery subsidiary to the Municipal Art Gallery and no revolutionary change or doubtful complication of control would be involved. On the face of it such aji arrangement would be greatly to the advantage of the council for the subsidiary gallery would fill the need of space for loan exhibitions, and its proximity to the main gallery would undoubtedly inspire greater interest in the city’s permanent collection. In this connection it should also be noted that the Society of Arts has substantial funds which it is prepared to devote at least in part to a scheme for joint housing and had approached the council independently, before the larger proposal was made. With regard to the University and the Slam School of Art the position is different. Education in New Zealand is the special preserve of the general Government and the city has very limited power to engage in it. Unless a School of Fine Arts comes strictly within the definition of a technical or secondary school (and a college empowered to bestow degrees would hardly aver that its status is no higher than that) to deal- with these bodies would involve special legislation and it is submitted that the city council should not seek to extend its powers into the province of an educational authority or that of the general Government. There are already so many voices clamouring for the curtailment of the council’s powers that one looks for the definite rejection of an enterprise for which it would, in any case, require special legislation to embark upon. When the future of the Art Gallery is settled it should be done so that the council’s collection will be comfortably housed for all time. That desideratum is not likely to be attained by joint housing with a University that in 1926 found premises erected the previous year too small for it. Nor is the matter disposed of on the question of joint housing. The cost must be defrayed and since the college has no money available either for the building or for endowment of the Chair and attendant lectureships it would have co look to citizens to provide for both and the same citizens would afterwards be called on to endorse a municipal loan, covering the city’s share of the building, and thus foot the whole bill. It is noteworthy, too, that the proposal involves the purchase of Grammar School property, when the city already owns large endowments in the same locality. If the council thinks first of its own ratepayers it will go ahead independently with its scheme for the erection of an Art Gallery in Princes Street. It has already spent a large sum of money in obtaining the best possible plans, it has the site and a very valuable collection of pictures urgently in need of improved accommodation; surely its clear duty is to avoid entangling itself in an alliance that more than likely would again result in the shelving of a very necessary municipal undertaking.