THE PRIVILEGES OF MEMBERSHIP A MESSAGE FROM YOUR COUNCIL newNUMBER TWENTY, JULY 1968s Since we moved into the new gallery our activities have considerably increased. We have had much more important and varied exhibitions. This will continue because it is exactly what we want, but it means we have to pay our share of expenses for some travelling THE JOURNAL OF exhibitions, otherwise we just cannot have them. THE CANTERBURY SOCIETY OF ARTS It may here be noted that the subsidy we used to 66 GLOUCESTER STREET receive through the Association of Arts Societies to cover losses on expensive travelling exhibitions has P.O. BOX 772 now ceased. CHRISTCHURCH We get no revenue from this source and there does TELEPHONE 67-261 not appear to be any likelihood of a resumption of this support in the near future. The increased activity has also meant more work, accomplished only by paying our way, which we are some of which must be paid for, higher cleaning, light­ doing. We have a strong membership and an active ing and heating costs as compared with those of the interesting programme of events ahead of us for many old gallery, and increased expenditure for a number of months. things—printing and the cost of opening functions, Finally, and perhaps most important of all, your for instance. continuing support and membership makes it possible Our programme for the remainder of this year is a for your Society to take an active part in the visual very full one and already we are arranging exhibitions arts in New Zealand and to maintain a new gallery for 1969. and exhibition centre. Unless we co-operate with other Societies and organ­ S. E. MAIR, President. isations such as the Association of Art Societies and the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council by paying our share of the costs, we cannot have some of the most mportant exhibitions which come to New Zealand. It is because of this, and the need to meet current expenses without incurring debts, that your Council GALLERY CALENDAR has recently made moderate charges for admission to Subject to Adjustment some exhibitions. We are anxious for you to under­ stand this and to give you our assurance that charges To July 14: Associate Open Exhibition. will not be made except when necessary. July 14: Film and slide evening in con­ Your Council has now decided on the following junction with the Photographic Society. membership privileges, which have some small vari­ July 17-31: Print 68. ations from those pertaining before: August 4-15: "Christchurch Star" • Each member will receive an invitation to the Secondary Schools' Exhibition. opening functions of all exhibitions organised by the Society. August 11-24: Loan "Seldom Seen" Exhibition—Work done by overseas artists. • Each member may bring one guest to these open­ ing functions; alternatively he may give his guest August 26 - September 13: Canadian ticket to a friend to enable a visit to the gallery at Commission. some other time. This guest ticket will be valid for August 28 - September 4: Batik (Indian). one admission only. September 6-22: Yuri Gershevich (one man show). • Each member will have the right of free admis­ sion as frequently as he or she wishes to exhibi­ September 14-25: Town and Country tions. If, to defray expenses for special exhibi­ Exhibition. tions, your Council decides a charge must be September 28-October 11: Graphic made, members will pay half price. Exhibition. • Each member will continue to receive free of September 28 October 10: A. M. Steven charge the six bi-monthly issues of our journal (one-man show). "News," free participation in our Annual Art October 5-19: Sydney Thompson Compli­ Union and reduced fees at the Saturday children's mentary Exhibition. art classes. October 22 - November 5: Betty Curnow These membership privileges largely follow those of (one-man show). long standing in the Durham Street Gallery over past October 25 - November 12: The Group. years. The Council wishes to remind members that, from November 7-21: Olivia Spencer-Bower time to time our gallery, or part of it, is rented to (one-man show). artists or groups who then have the right to charge November 15-24: Derek Mitchell, War­ their own admissions and sometimes do. An example ren Clode, Philip Rooke, Bronwyn Taylor, of this was the charge for admission made by the Rodney Newton-Broad. Pan Pacific Arts Festival Committee in March this November 24 - December 7: Golden year. Fleece—Spinning and Weaving. We are not worried by our financial responsibilities December 7-22: Summer Show. t>ut, as expected, our expenses have increased. We have to meet interest payments on our mortgage loan and December 9-22: Photographic Society. we have to reduce that loan each year. This can be Keep This Date Free Advisory Service More commercial firms have asked the advice of the Keep Sunday evening, July 14, free. Society in buying paintings for presentation or for their At 8 p.m. we are combining with the Christchurch offices. Usually the request is for a New Zealand land­ Photographic Society in presenting four colour films scape. (total time fifty-five minutes) at the Gallery. The President, Mr S. E. Mair, reports that Cerebros These will be followed by twenty minutes of colour Foods (N.Z.) Ltd. of Auckland, bought No. 81, a land­ slides. scape by W. F. Moore, "Torless from Craigiebum No admission will be charged, but coffee afterwards Station" in the Autumn Exhibition. will cost 10 cents. A larger painting by the same artist, "Mt Talbot", The first film is "New Zealand Painters" — a North a view from the upper Hollyford Valley, was bought Island artist, Don Neilson, shows how he paints a land­ on the Society's advice by Felt and Textiles (N.Z.) Ltd. scape. of Wellington. This painting is being sent to a New "Australian Landscape Painters" covers the field Zealander transferred to the firm's Australian under­ from the petty painters to Drysdale and Nolan. taking. "Art for Everybody" concerns the functions of an art gallery in its community. "National Gallery of Art" gives close-ups of famous paintings in this great Washington Gallery. Council Resignations The range of colour slides includes some of the Photographic Society's finest. The Council has suffered from resignations lately. It should not be unexpected that, with the fine quar­ Pressure of work and other requirements have neces­ ters we now operate from, precedents will crowd one sitated the resignations of Mrs Vy Elsom, and Messrs upon another. W. A. Sutton, Paul Pascoe and G. C. C. Sandston. In June it was Maurice Till's Schubert and Debussy Your Council has appointed Mr Ron O'Reilly, the recital in the Gallery in conjunction with the Christ­ City Librarian, and Mr Bill Cumming, well known church Chamber Music Society. for his work with the Town and Country Exhibition, Here we pioneered in Christchurch something to fill two of these vacancies. known elsewhere in New Zealand and common over­ seas, and we expect it will lead to more musical activity in our Gallery. Similarly, we confidently expect our new associ­ ation with the Photographic Society can lead to more activity in a thus extended realm of visual pleasure. Gallery Rentals BASIC CHARGES Mezzanine—1400 sq ft, 70 (hanging) linear ft, $10.00 Art in London 1968 a day. From Peter Beaven, architect and former Main Gallery—First Floor: 4660sq ft, 380 linear ft, Council member now working in Britain. $50.00 a day. Carnaby Street designers are down at the Victoria South Portion of Main Gallery: 2560sq ft, 180 linear and Albert Museum sketching through the historic ft, $30.00 a day. rooms, picking up the boutique ideas. For six months Under Mezzanine and North Portion: 2100sq ft, 200 Victorian clothes, old uniforms and regalia glided linear ft, $20.00 a day. through the streets. Now, suddenly, with the spring, Ground Floor— all historicism is gone. South Gallery, 1024sq ft, 110 linear ft, $20.00 a day. The involvement of creative people and artists with Selling Gallery: 560sq ft, 75 linear ft, $15.00 a day. the everyday world of the streets is almost the most exciting thing in London. Carrier bags, printed bric-a- CONDITIONS AND DISCOUNTS brac of all kinds, superb advertisments you want to For evening or half days—half the above charges. hang on the wall, posters witty, rude and elegant. All everyday printed information is decorated and made For one full week's occupancy—25 per cent dis­ explicit. count on the above charges. Magazines, window displays, the growing number of For two weeks occupancy—33 1-3 per cent discount throw-away articles of temporary glamour mean there on the above charges. is so much room for creative people, enriching every­ Light and heat an addition. day things into pleasurable objects. They are all cheap. It would fit our New Zealand situation. For Approved Organisations The whole gamut of avant-garde activity seems to Rental charges half of the above rates, but no be flowing back into life. The demands of economic discount. activity, the advertisers, the higher enclaves of power, One Man Shows all need in their own way, the visual and manipulative experimenters whose influence has long since left the Deposit of $20.00. galleries. No rental, but 25 per cent commission charged on It is remarkable to see the surrealists, kineticists, sales. The $20.00 deposit will be refunded if sales op, pop, or hard edged artists all being pressed into exceed $80.00. service. It isn't only the psychological content which Artists, if they wish, can rent the galleries at half is creating the demand, but a deeper need to enrich an the basic charges, as for approved organisations.