Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent unused condition. Images are beautiful bright and vivid. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> The second largest of the Gallery’s holdings the painting collection includes major national representation of work by artists Petrus van der Velden and William A. Sutton. It is also one of the oldest collections: its foundations were laid 123 years ago by the Canterbury Society of Arts which was the prime contributor to the Gallery when it opened as the Robert McDougall Art Gallery in 1932. There is no question that many hoped the Gallery would develop a strong collection of Old Master works and this goal was still prominent as late as the 1970s. The initial focus of the Canterbury Society of Art collection had been painting by British and New Zealand living artists acquired for educational purposes. The society never set out to form a museum collection although it was conscious of improving the standard of work represented. By the 1900s the society’s painting collection had grown considerably with works acquired by purchase gift and bequest. The 1906-07 New Zealand International Exhibition held in Christchurch offered a unique opportunity to purchase contemporary British works of a previously unmatched standard. Among the paintings purchased were paintings by Henrietta Rae Charles D. Leslie Richard Anning Bell Frederic Leighton and others most of which are now in the Gallery’s painting collection. (MP)