MAKING THE MUSEUM EXHIBITS “LIVE”

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 86, 5 January 1935, Page 13

MAKING THE MUSEUM EXHIBITS “LIVE”

Many Pictures Secured

COMING CHANGE TO NEW BUILDING

Although the new National Art Gallery and Dominion Museum building on the Mount Cook site, Wellington, will not be completed till March, 1936, preparations for the change over to the new quarters are already being made by Dr. W. R. B. Oliver and his staff at the present museum building. A plan of the accommodation available has been drawn up and long before the new building can be entered the authorities will know almost exactly where every exhibit will be placed. It is a work of some magnitude, and wilt be continued for the next 18 months or so. Then will come the actual change over, which in the case of some exhibits will necessitate special precautions to see that they are carefully handled in transit. Now that the show cases have been allocated the work at present in progress is that of writing, printing and framing the labels. The new Dominion museum will be unique, as museums go, in another way. A large number of pictures to illustrate the various subjects among the exhibits is being prepared. The larger of these will be shown on the walls,'and in addition smaller ones are being prepared for the insides of the show cases. Making the Museum “Live.”. This feature will make the new museum live in an attractive and arresting way. The exhibit of a shag’s nest, "for instance, will be accompanied by pictures illustrating the breeding of the birds. It will put life into dead subjects, and is being done on a large scale. Dr. Oliver told “The Dominion” yesterday that he had received a splendid series of some six dozen photographs of sea and bush birds from Mr. A. S. Wilkinson, the caretaker on Kapiti Island, and they are being used for this illustrative purpose. This feature, which is being expanded in all sections, will make the museum far more Interesting than it would otherwise be. There will be in all 600 wall pictures, excluding numbers of others in the show cases. In the astronomy, meteorology and oceanography sections Dr. Oliver is having the assistance of Dr. E. Kidson, Dominion meteorologist, and Dr. C. E. Adams, Dominion astronomer and seismologist. There will be a special set of pictures (original paintings or photographs of originals) on the history of New Zealand, commencing with the voyage of discovery of Abel Tasman, and including the Cook and other voyages, the three chief Maori wars, and the settlement of the different districts in the early days of the colony. Kauri Gum Collection. The museum already possesses the valuable Robley .collection—some 60 paintings of the Maori wars in the Bay of Plenty—and a number of large oil paintings of Maoris and Maori scenes. The F. O. Peat collection of kauri gum, purchased by the Government, last year, will be placed in the kauri hall, which will be devoted to the kauri tree and the timber and gum industries which followed from it. In the Maori hall, through which the public must pass - on entering the new museum, will be placed the hull of the Teremoe canoe, the Maori river canoe, the hull of Te Heke Rangatira canoe, the Maori fishing canoe, the model of a Maori pa, porch of a turanga house, two pataka (Maori food houses on legs) and Chatham Island canoes. Valuable Cook Exhibits. In the right wing will be the geology aud botany sections, the kauri section, birds, and Ashes; in the left wing the Maori ethnology and foreign ethnology groups, aud at the back mammals and birds. The Hawaiian islands section will include a number of very valuable Cook exhibits —various things presented to Captain Cook during his voyages, purchased by the St. Oswald family in 1819 from the London museum and presented to the New Zealand Government by Lord St. Oswald in 1912. These comprise: fish-hooks, feather cloaks, pigs’-teeth bracelets, a feather cape, feather hat, the war god Kukailimoku and feather helmets.