Challenge Grant Scheme for Gallery

The Christchurch City Council this week launches its Challenge Grant Scheme in support of the Christchurch Art Gallery.

The Challenge Grant Scheme will see the Council match funds raised by the Christchurch Art Gallery Trust up to a set amount annually for the next 10 years ($190,000 in 2009-10 inflation-adjusted annually) so that significant works of art can be purchased by the Gallery. The Council’s contribution was agreed as part of the Council’s 2009-19 Long Term Council Community Plan.

The Trust was established in 1991 by the Friends of the Robert McDougall Art Gallery to raise and hold funds for acquisitions and to ensure that the Gallery’s collection remains one of the foremost in New Zealand. There are a number of ways that people can donate to its funds, including annual giving, special donations and bequests.

The Gallery Director will make recommendations from time to time to purchase appropriate works of art using funds held by the Trust and Challenge Grant funds held by the Council.

”This is an extremely generous move by the Council, which will give the Trust even greater motivation to raise funds on the gallery’s behalf,” says Christchurch Art Gallery Trust Chairman Mike Stenhouse.

“Now that we have completed the redevelopment and rehang of the permanent collection galleries, the Challenge Grant gives us opportunities to purchase new works of art to display to the people of Christchurch and the hundreds of thousands of visitors who come to the gallery each year,” says Gallery Director Jenny Harper.

“There will be absolutely no problem identifying possible future acquisitions for the Gallery! On a recent trip to the Netherlands, I was able to look at an early van der Velden work that would be a great addition to our holdings of this artist; we are interested in some Theo Schoon drawings of early rock art, and we are also investigating a half-size portrait sculpture in London as a possibility for acquisition. We are also interested in some major Peter Robinsons which have just come onto the market.

”The first purchase made under this scheme will be a recent work by Seraphine Pick that was part of our recent exhibition. We are delighted with the gift of $40,000 raised by the Friends of Christchurch Art Gallery which will be given to the Trust at the opening of our new collection display, ‘Brought to Light’. Effectively this donation is doubled, so we are likely to see some early benefits of the new Challenge Grant. It is a unique and wonderfully far-sighted endorsement of one of the art gallery’s key roles,” says Jenny Harper.

The Christchurch Art Gallery Trust is a charitable trust registered with the Charities Commission, and provides donors with the advantage of a tax deduction for their contributions.