In 1910, Sir Hugh Lane, famous art collector, philanthropist and dominant figure in the establishment of the Johannesburg Art Gallery penned his thoughts and vision for the new gallery. Below are a few powerful passages.
Johannesburg is rapidly losing the reasons for reproach with which the remainder of South Africa has armed itself against this community, and, by the establishment of a Gallery of Modern Art in the town, removes for ever the stigma that its citizens are concerned with naught else than the massing of fortunes.
It would be Utopian to expect that the presence of four-score or so of the best examples of Modern Art will have the effect of making this new nation artistic, but there can be no doubt of the influence which their presence in the country is likely to have upon its artistic development, and upon the various forms of intellectual activity, which together make up the culture of a nation.
There is something quite unique in the acquisition of such a collection for a community which is only beginning to establish itself and the experiment is one which will be watched by Art-lovers the world over with keen interest. Johannesburg's Gallery in the beginning is an ambitious project to form a representative collection of Modern Art for South Africa.
Johannesburg Art Gallery (The Heritage...
