Canterbury Society of Arts Gallery - The Group

83 Armagh Street was once the site of an art gallery but it was not considered worth repairing following the earthquakes and was demolished in 2012.
Benjamin Mountfort designed the first building in 1890.
The Durham St gallery was one of venues used by the Group, a significant player in New Zealand art history. It held exhibitions annually in Christchurch for 50 years from 1927 to 1977 . The Group was an informal association set up by former students of the Canterbury College of Art to exhibit more challenging modernist works than would be accepted for the established Canterbury Society of Arts annual show. Their annual exhibitions became an important outlet for the young creative artists who emerged in Christchurch in the 1930s and 1940s.
Catalogues were printed by Denis Glover's Caxton Press. The Group and Caxton Press were among a number of Christchurch institutions which provided a home for radical intellectuals at the time, along with the Christchurch Co-operative Book Society and, until 1940, Tomorrow magazine. With the emergence of dealer galleries and of solo shows by artists The Group decided in 1977 to discontinue their annual shows.

An extraordinary group of artists contributed to cultural life in Christchurch over two decades. The story is told Bloomsbury South by Peter Simpson.