New Home Mooted For Auckland Art

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 695, 21 June 1929, Page 18

New Home Mooted For Auckland Art

COUNCIL APPROACHED MEMORIAL PROPOSALS Proposals for establishing a new and permanent home for the Auckland Society of Arts were placed before the Auckland City Council last evening, when a letter embracing a scheme of co-operation between the society and the council was submitted. Dr. E. B. Gunson, whose proposals they were, stated in a letter that the society intended as soon as possible to provide a new home for its pictures in order to carry out the terms of the McKechnie Trust. Having in mind the expressed intention of the council at some future date to erect a new Art Gallery, it appeared to him that if it could be arranged for the society’s new building to be erected in conjunction with the contemplated city gallery, this purpose could be achieved. The society would be prepared to make a donation to the City Council provided a security of tenure could be arranged to conform with the conditions of the McKechnie Trust, which controlled the society’s building fund. MEMORIAL SECTIONS

If it were considered appropriate to develop a suggestion that sections of the gallery be named after the donors of pictures, the new building might well assume a memorial character, and an appeal to some of the more wealthy citizens, known to be seriously interested in art, would probably be productive of further gifts in their own lifetime.

Dr. Gunson added that he was prepared to meet the council and elucidate his proposals. The letter was referred to the Library Committee for report. The Mayor and Cr. Melville said there was a great deal of interesting subject matter in the proposal and asked that it should be considered fully. Cr. Melville, chairwoman of the Library Committee, added that the congestion at the library was now so acute that relief there for the Society of Arts would be welcomed.