KEY POINTS:
When Australian novelist Tim Winton was in town for the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival, he was also looking forward to an hour or two with the Colin McCahon paintings at Auckland Art Gallery.
He told the Listener he regarded McCahon as one of the great painters and he was looking forward to time alone with the world's biggest collection of his works.
But, to his great disappointment, not one of the gallery's 262 McCahons was on display.
A colleague just back from a trip to Vancouver knows how grumpy the West Australian McCahon fan must have been.
An art lover, he had gone to the Vancouver Art Gallery to see the works of eccentric British Columbian icon Emily Carr, and also found not one on display.
For both art lovers, it was like going to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and finding no works by Rembrandt.
An Auckland Gallery spokeswoman said it was "unfortunate timing". An eight-month exhibition highlighting works McCahon completed during his time on staff at the gallery, from 1953 to 1964, had closed just before the novelist turned up.
She said: "We've had at least one McCahon on display almost constantly in the past decade and, since July 2002, five separate exhibitions have been devoted to his work."
A new exhibition of early works, including a recently donated Madonna and Child from 1956, opens in the New Gallery in October.
All of which is great for regular patrons, but not so good for passing fans of our biggest artistic drawcard. It raises again the question of whether the stalled $90 million remodelling of the existing gallery is addressing the right question.
All last week, opponents of the scheme were in the Environment Court, battling as best they could over issues such as the breaching of city council viewshafts down Wellesley St to Albert Park and whether the "improvements" or "demolitions" involved were allowable on a category A listed building. The hearings have gone well over the allotted time and, on Friday, were adjourned until July 12 for a concluding day or two.
I sympathise with those who want to save the gorgeous old building from the improvers, and not only because I think we should leave well alone.
More worryingly, the $90 million rebuild is not the solution it is being cracked up to be. When completed, the rebuilt gallery will still not have enough room to house big slow-moving, international blockbuster shows and also give adequate display space for the treasures in the city gallery's 14,000-item collection.
This week, Auckland Regional Council and Auckland City jointly announce their latest development proposals for the Tank Farm site on the downtown waterfront.
At the risk of sounding like a cracked record, wouldn't it be wise to at least contemplate a grand New Zealand Museum of Modern Art as a prime contender for the site.
Some regard Queen's Wharf at the bottom of Queen St as a more convenient and obvious choice. They could well be right. Certainly, the site is likely to be available sooner - perhaps in less than five years - than a Tank Farm location.
But we don't know the answers to any of these questions until people sit down and discuss what is possible - and that hasn't happened.
We're warned by advocates of rebuilding the existing gallery that debate now will jeopardise their fund-raising efforts. I think it's time they came clean about how close to their fund-raising target they've really got. It is possible that a grander plan than the existing one might attract more support, rather than frighten potential donors away.
The Tim Winton episode is a reminder that we have a world heritage collection deep in the vaults of Auckland Art Gallery.
At the risk of sounding mercenary, we should be sharing our McCahons with the world, not only because we have a cultural duty to do so, but because they could be tourist-attracting money-spinners.
But before we can make the McCahons a destination, they need to come out of the vaults and go on display.
