Kā Kaupapa o te Wā
What’s On
Made in the Pacific: A Collection of Tāoga
A selection of Pacific tāoga from the Canterbury Museum in conversation with contemporary artworks that highlight the continued strength in culture and traditional art forms.
Mark Adams: A Survey | He Kohinga Whakaahua
A comprehensive survey spanning the artist's career.
Ana Iti: Ngahere Behind a Pile of Metal
An immersive installation considering the legacies of deforestation and significance of kauri trees.
E tuwhera ana te wharetoi i kā rā e 7 o te wiki, 10am - 5pm
Ka tuwhera ki te 9pm i kā pō Wenerei
Open 7 days, 10am - 5pm
Late night Wednesday until 9pm
Uruka utukore, ahokore utukore
Free entry, free wifi
Collection
Eric Gill Carrying of the Cross
Eric Gill was one of the most prominent and energetic proponents of wood engraving during its revival in England during the 1920s. His training as a sculptor put him in good stead for the medium: scale aside, carving an uncut piece of stone is not dissimilar to carving the surface of a wood engraving block. Gill excelled as a wood engraver. He was one of the most prolific of his generation, and his work illustrated many private press publications. In this work, Gill's strong, hard-edged lines cut directly from the wood engraving block, reflect his training as a sulptuor and highlights his unique style. It was included as an illustration in Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, published by the Golden Cockerel Press in 1926.
The Golden Age 18 December 2015 – 1 May 2016
Collection
John Buckland Wright Three Bathers
Recognised internationally for his wood-engravings, John Buckland Wright originally came from Ōtepoti Dunedin and moved to England at a young age. He became interested in wood-engraving in the mid-1920s and taught himself the medium. Living in Brussels at this time, he joined De Vijf, a group of contemporary Belgian woodblock printers. He gained a reputation for book illustration and was commissioned to cut wood-engravings by some of the most celebrated private presses, including The Golden Cockerel Press.
Ink on Paper: Aotearoa New Zealand Printmakers of the Modern Era, 11 February – 28 May 2023
Collection
Eric Daglish Flocking Starlings
The London-based art critic Malcolm Salaman was very complimentary about Eric Daglish's work, writing in 1927: Mr Eric F. Daglish has a place of his own among our artists on the wood, by reason both of his chosen subject-matter and his decoratively individual manner of treating it. With delicate white lines on black, simply informing or elaborately grouped, and some rhythmic emphasis of white mass, he will depict the bird or quadruped amid its wonted surroundings of vegetable growth, so that these shall conform to a decorative pattern and yet seem to happen naturally. The bird may be on the bough, the frog on the marsh, the rabbit on the edge of the wood, but the artist’s graver will be no less concerned with the branch and its leaves or cones, the reeds and the rushes, the undergrowth, than with the plumage, the skin, the fur. And what a knowledgeable master of varied plumage is Mr Daglish […] But how decoratively alive they are!
The Golden Age 18 December 2015 – 1 May 2016
Collection
Francis A. Shurrock Be still Earth, be silent, be still and be silent
Like Roland Hipkins, Robert Field and William Allen, the sculptor Francis Shurrock studied at the Royal College of Art in London and immigrated to Aotearoa under the La Trobe scheme to take up a teaching position at one of the country’s art schools. Francis, or Shurrie as his students fondly called him, taught at the Canterbury College School of Art in Ōtautahi Christchurch, where he offered a contemporary, modern outlook on art that was in contrast to the conservative atmosphere of the school at that time. Francis owned a large collection of ukiyo-e Japanese woodblock prints, which he made freely available to his students and friends. He began making linocuts in the late 1920s and wood-engravings in the early 1930s, encouraging many of his students to use these mediums in their practice.
Ink on Paper: Aotearoa New Zealand Printmakers of the Modern Era, 11 February – 28 May 2023
Collection
Robert Gibbings St Brendan and the Sea Monsters
Robert Gibbings was an early convert to wood engraving and quickly appreciated its qualities. He once wrote:
Discipline in art: was that what I’d come to London for? Impressionism was what I thought I was after. I couldn’t think what all this hard labour on wood was about. There was no tradition at the time; it seemed a lot of finicky gouging to get a few lines that might have been obtained more easily with a pen or brush. But slowly a love of the wood came upon me. I began to enjoy the crisp purr of the graver as it furrowed the polished surface. I began to appreciate the cleanness of the white line that it incised: even the simplest silhouettes had an austere quality, a dignity, that could not be achieved by other means. Clear, precise statement, that was what it amounted to. Near enough wouldn’t do: it had to be just right.
The Golden Age 18 December 2015 – 1 May 2016
An illustration from 'Beasts and Saints', translated by Helen Waddell, published by Constable, 1949.