NEW ZEALAND ART

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 26, 19 June 1939, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND ART

A CENTENNIAL FEATURE EXHIBITION TO TOUR DOMINION The Government is taking advantage of the cpportunitj r the -Centennial year will afford to plan an exhibition of New Zealand art which will range from the Avork of the earliest surveyors and artists, Avho visited New Zealand before Avhite settlement, up to and including that of the present day. The Minister of Internal Affairs, the Hon. W. E. Parry ? stated to.day that the exhibition would form a complete visual survey of New Zealand art. Many of the early drawings and paintings, he said, were to be found in, our art galleries and museums and in private collections, and the intention was to bring them together to make a special feature of the proposed exhibition. mencing with 'those early works, a complete survey of the first hundred years of art in New Zealand Avas being planned and, the exhibition would consist not only of paintings but also of drawings, etchings, lithographs, caricatures, cartoons book illustrations and sculpture. A Comprehensive Itinerary. Tt Avas not intended that the exhibition should be confined to one eeritre but that it should be displayed in the main centres and towns of the Dominion. A well_produced catalogue, complete with biographical notes and illustrations, would be compiled and this would afford a, valuable historical record of New Zealand art. Committee To Be Set Up» The Minister stated that the Government contemplated setting up a National Committee to control the venture and to secure the active cooperation of the various art bodies throughout the Dominion. He slso hoped that private collectors woulc come forward and lend their art treasures and thus make this exhibition the most memorable in the history of New Zealand art.