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WALKER ART GALLERY. 
The Curator has the honour to report in reference to the work 
during the year 1909 of the Department under the direction of the 
Art and Exhibitions Sub-Committee of the City Council. 
For the first time since 1906 it was possible to display in the 
Gallery the greater part of the City’s Permanent Collection of works 
of art. These were on view until the beginning of August, when, as 
usual, preparations for the Autumn Exhibition involved the removal 
of a large number of pictures; as many as possible being retained 
by a more crowded arrangement in the remaining rooms. The 
customary effect on the attendance of the public appeared in the 
- increase of the total number of visitors from 338,652 in 1908 to 
372,371 in 1909. 
The question of an extension of the Art Gallery has continued to 
be the subject of anxious consideration, and consultation with the 
City Surveyor, the need for it growing more obvious each year, as 
the collections increase in number and importance; and evidences 
are continually presenting themselves of the evil effect on pictures 
and frames, of frequent removals. At the meeting of the City 
Council on 7th July, 1909, a formal recommendation was approved 
“that the Library, Museum and Arts Committee give the question 
of a much-needed extension of the Art Gallery their very serious 
consideration.” The expense involved, although a minor considera- 
tion, is by no means negligible. The well-being of the City’s Art 
Treasures also calls for the reform of the system of heating, and it 
was resolved to make an experimental beginning early in 1910, 
during the reconstruction and redecoration of the west front room 
on the ground floor (Roscoe Room), sanctioned by the Committee as 
part of the scheme outlined in the Annual Report for 1908. During 
1909 it was only possible (for financial reasons) to undertake the 
alteration of the middle west room into a tea room, the construction 
of a kitchen in connection with it, and the provision of an adequate 
new gilder’s workshop in the yard, in lieu of the small front room to 
