The Dunedin City Council is to consider a funding increase for the Dunedin Public Art Gallery to help boost its flagging purchasing power for new art.
DPAG director Elizabeth Caldwell, in a report to this week's Dunedin City Council budget meetings, has recommended the council consider a staged increase in the gallery's annual art acquisition funding, from $50,000 a year to $300,000 a year by 2019-20.
Her report followed a request for more information from councillors, following discussion about the gallery's art acquisition position at last year's annual plan budget hearings.
Ms Caldwell said the increases could be delayed by two years, then begin rising incrementally from 2014-15 to reach $300,000 a year in 2019-20.
That would represent a dramatic increase in council funding for the gallery's art acquisition funding allocation, which began at $20,000 a year in 2003-04, and increased to $50,000 a year in 2007-08.
However, Ms Caldwell said the Gallery Society's funds for new acquisitions - raised through investments - had been dwindling for a decade, and it expected to provide only $30,000 a year for the next decade.
Apart from that, the gallery was left with irregular grants from trusts and occasional bequests to add to its acquisitions fund, with the total number of artworks gifted to the gallery also dwindling, she said.
At the same time, the art market remained "remarkably robust", meaning the cost of buying new pieces was rising, she said.
DPAG was also competing against other galleries, including Wellington's Te Papa and Auckland and Christchurch galleries, which all had larger budgets for art purchases, she said.
Auckland and Christchurch each received annual council funding totalling $300,000 a year for art collection development, on top of fundraising, bequests and other support, she said.
Both were dwarfed by Te Papa, which received $3 million a year for acquisitions from the Government, about half of which went on art expenditure, she said.
