Art Toi: New Zealand Art at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki - beautiful publication to mark opening Auckland Art Gallery

The following is an extract from the foreword by Chris Saines to Art Toi: New Zealand Art at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, edited by Ron Brownson:

 Published to coincide with Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki’s re-opening after a major expansion project, Art Toi celebrates the art and artists of Aotearoa New Zealand. There are 181 artists represented here, some of them little known but many collected in depth. Told through the agency of more than 300 works of art, and with a strong emphasis on living artists, Art Toi tells New Zealand art stories, documents their place, and plots their trajectory in our historical and contemporary lives. It reaches back to the 17th century to include work made at the moment of first contact between Māori and European explorers, adventurers and whalers, and projects forward into the early 21st century to provide a sweeping account of the Gallery’s New Zealand holdings.

Auckland Art Gallery is home to the country’s most extensive collection of New Zealand and international art. When it opened on 17 February 1888, it was proclaimed the first permanent art gallery in the Dominion. The founding gifts of Sir George Grey and James Mackelvie were instrumental in the Gallery’s establishment. From Grey, came William Ewart’s portrait of Hami Hone Ropiha, arguably the first New Zealand portrait to enter the collection. From Mackelvie came watercolours created by his friend Albin Martin. In 1893 Grey also donated an important collection of Māori taonga. These public-spirited gestures were unprecedented in their scale and heralded a culture of patronage by generous individuals that endures to the present day.

Several major gifts were received from the early 1900s onward. Chief among these were 72 paintings depicting Māori by Gottfried Lindauer. Beginning in 1874, Henry Partridge commissioned Lindauer to produce a pictorial account of the Māori people. The Partridge Collection is the most significant collection of indigenous portraiture in Australasia. Rarely has a gift been so finely calculated in its wider cultural and philanthropic effect. Additionally, in 1937, Harry Kinder presented a collection of watercolours created by his father, Reverend John Kinder. A self-taught artist, Kinder worked in an age when landscape was the dominant genre. Many of his views of the Tāmaki isthmus reflected the rapid transformations occurring across the cultural geography of New Zealand.

The Gallery effectively entered the modern era in 1953 with the arrival of its first professional director, Eric Westbrook, a sophisticated and specialist art historian. Led by Westbrook the institution became increasingly confident and adopted a more ordered approach to the development of its collections and their exhibition and interpretation. Westbrook and his successor, Peter Tomory, established a focus on the New Zealand collection which all subsequent directors have emulated.

Tomory brought together a gifted staff – Colin McCahon, Hamish Keith, Peter Webb and Ross Fraser among them. Their focus was always on promoting the achievements of local artists. It was McCahon who turned the Gallery’s attention to Rita Angus, Toss Woollaston and Milan Mrkusich, and Keith who secured the great Christopher Perkins collection and key works by May Smith, Pat Hanly and Louise Henderson. Local artists entered the collection earlier and more regularly than in any other municipal collection. A seminal figure in New Zealand art history, Eric McCormick, developed the Gallery’s pre-eminent holdings of Frances Hodgkins; and the engagement of outside experts including Michael Dunn, Wystan Curnow, Francis Pound, Una Platts, Elizabeth Ellis and Jim Vivieaere further assisted in expanding the collection’s scope.

Specialist curators continue to guide the development of the New Zealand collection not only in the media it collects but also in its representation of art history. For example, the emphasis that the Gallery has recently given to the achievements of the Māori modernists from the 1950s to the 1980s has brought into the collection many important early works by some of the finest New Zealand artists of the 20th century – Arnold Manaaki Wilson, Para Matchitt, Fred Graham and Ralph Hotere.

Artists have always been generous contributors to the collection. Colin McCahon and Pat Hanly gifted many of their best paintings; and Theo Schoon, Marti Friedlander and Max Gimblett have all given representative collections of their work. Their generosity has been complemented by the efforts of support groups like the Friends of the Auckland Art Gallery (established 1954) and the Patrons of Auckland Art Gallery (established 1987) who have collectively gifted many of the Gallery’s key works by New Zealand artists. Since 1997, the representative breath of the New Zealand collections has been transformed by the long loan of the collection developed by the Chartwell Trust since the mid-1970s. This is the most extensive holding of New Zealand contemporary art in private hands, albeit one which has been imbued with a very public purpose. Rob and Sue Gardiner’s exemplary commitment to representing established and emerging artists has hugely enriched the Gallery’s ability to tell New Zealand and Australian contemporary art stories.

In conclusion, I thank editor Ron Brownson and managing editor Catherine Hammond for the superb roles they have played in developing Art Toi. This publication is a tribute to the artists whose work fills its pages, and to those contributors who have helped illuminate their place in our culture. In realising our aspirations for Art Toi, we relied greatly on the generous support of The Molly Morpeth Canaday Fund. We owe a real debt to the Fund, and to a dedicated research, curatorial, photography, editorial, design and production team.

The completion of the Gallery’s largest physical transformation means that more of the collection than ever before will be on display, further elaborating the institution’s 123-year commitment to researching, collecting, exhibiting and interpreting New Zealand art. The past which is celebrated in this book and the future to which it points have a committed and permanent supporter in the Auckland Art Gallery.

 - Chris Saines, Director

Footnote:

My office is currently awash with beautiful books and this is one of them. I was fortunate enough to attend the opening of the newly refurbished and greatly expanded Auckland Art Gallery last week and my goodness what a triumph of planning and design it is. Absolutely stunning. Knockout stuff.

So it seems eminently appropriate that the Gallery should publish this beautiful book to mark this very special event in the cultural life of Auckland. And what a bargain at $59.95.

The Gallery has given me permission to reproduce some of my favourite pieces and while they do not do justice to the originals they will give you something of a feel for the book. Visit the Gallery, buy the book!
Both are treasures.

Characterisation in Colour - May Smith - 1941

Horizon, Peter Siddell - 1987

The Glorious Dead - Richard Killeen - 1968

Stockyard, The Hunters Hills - Peter McIntyre - 1948

Mere and Siulolovao, Otago Peninsular - Robin White - 1978

Opo:The Hokianga Dolphin - Eric Lee-Johnson - 1955