Date
29 January, 1919
Location
Dunedin, New Zealand
Otago Art Society 42nd Annual Exhibition 1918
No. 3 The Valley Road £10.10.0 [Possibly BC139]
No. 144 Dolly Gray £3.3.0 [Location Unknown]
No. 147 A Country Road £2.2.0 [Location Unknown]
No. 265 Studies of a Draught Horse Pen and Ink £2.2.0 [Location Unknown]
No. 348 An Old Orchard £3.3.0 [Location Unknown]
While this iteration of the Otago Art Society was scheduled for late 1918, it did not open to the public until early 1919: “The forty-second annual exhibition of the Otago Art Society has been opened under very exceptional conditions. The society had announced its intention to open the gallery for a private view, to which its members and their friends were invited, on Tuesday, the 12th day of November last. On this historical date the frenzy of public elation excited by the announcement of the signing of by Germany of an armistice agreement, the terms of which meant the unconditional surrender of that bombastic empire and the end of the greatest war of all times, involved the abandonment of all arrangements other than spontaneous demonstrations of popular joy. The gathering was quietly opened on the thirteenth, but on that day it was realised that an epidemic of influenza, which, had already burst in fatal fury upon the dwellers in the North Island, was extending its operations with sinister rapidity among the people of Dunedin, and that nothing but immediate and drastic methods of isolation and repression could check its dreadful march. Once again the society was compelled to abandon its attempt to hold its annual exhibition and—to use an Irish expression—its doors were closed before they were opened. It may, therefore, be said that to-day the public has its first opportunity to view the splendid collection of paintings and works of art craft which fill the two large galleries of the Otago Art Society and afford an unusual feast of colour, charm, and intellectual interest to its patrons.” – 'Otago Art Society’, Otago Daily Times, 29 January 1919, pg 8