DLA105-0075  Transcription

National Art-Collections Fund

HERTFORD HOUSE,

MANCHESTER SQUARE,

LONDON, W.1

1st January, 1928.

DEAR SIR (OR MADAM),

In view of your having given a Bankers’ Order for the payment of your subscription to the National Art-Collections Fund, your card of membership is enclosed herewith entitling you to the privileges of this Society for the year 1928.

The year 1928 will commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of this Society. It is, therefore, in every sense a landmark in our history, and with your help and approval it is proposed to celebrate it as such.

At the end of our first year we numbered some 500 members. To-day we exceed 6,500. But with our modest minimum subscription there should be many more in this country to whom our work appeals, and who would wish to take part in it if asked to do so.

I have lately returned from a visit to most of the great Museums of America. The Metropolitan Museum of New York also has over 13,000 members who subscribe voluntarily towards its work a minimum of £2 per annum, with a total contribution for 1926 of £27,370. The Museum in Chicago has a membership of 17,000 with the same minimum subscription, bringing in no less than £37,000 for that year. Yet these are merely cities, less populous than London while this Society represents our whole country with its great traditions,

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I appeal to all our members, old or young, rich or poor, to play their part in this Anniversary Year by raising our membership at least to 10,000. If each would bring in but one new art-lover among their acquaintances it would be more than done, and some must have not one but many appreciative friends to whom we are still unknown. The names and address of possible members would also be welcome.

The Trustees of the National Gallery have very kindly invited our members to be present, on production of their cards of membership for 1928, at the formal opening of the Gallery just erected to contain the Mond bequest (entrance by Room VII), on Thursday afternoon, the 12th January, 1928, at 3 o’clock. The dimensions of this new Gallery are necessarily not such as to accommodate more than a small number at a time, but it is hoped that members before and whilst waiting their turn will, by way of opening the celebrations of our twenty-fifth anniversary, take the opportunity of inspection all the gifts made by the Society to the National Gallery during the past twenty-five years, some forty in number. The Trustees have arranged to distinguish these pictures with a special badge so that they may be easy to find. Thus members will be able to appreciate how much, even in a Gallery where the standard of quality is so high, is due to their efforts int the past, and the appreciation of what has been achieved should prove an incentive to further efforts.

I have also the pleasure to inform you that members have received an invitation to visit the Exhibition at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, 17, Savile Row, W.1., of a general collection of Pictures, Drawings, Furniture and other Objects of Art in the Gallery of the Club form the 1st February, 1928, between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.  and on Sundays from 2 to 7 p.m. The Exhibition will remain open until about the end of February.

Yours faithfully,

ROBERT WITT,

Chairman.

Editorial Note:

Sir Robert Clermont Witt (1872–1952), British Art Historian and Art Collector

SMDL

08/12/2022