Kā Kaupapa o te Wā
What’s On
Raymond McIntyre: A Modernist View
Dynamic and progressive paintings and woodcuts from one of Aotearoa’s New Zealand foremost modernist artists.
Living Archives
Archives that tell stories about artists and history in Aotearoa
He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil
Exploring the relationship between tākata and whenua – people and land – through Aotearoa New Zealand’s art history.
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Collection
Eric Daglish Hedgehogs
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
Bert Tornquist Parua Bay
Herbert Tornquist studied under Edward Friström at the Elam School of Art between 1910 and 1915 and, after time spent in Canada, England and the United States, settled back in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland where he eventually established a photography studio in 1925. Bert became one of the country’s most successful portrait photographers at the time, and was also committed to his printmaking practice. He was an active member of the Quoin Club, and his views of the landscapes around Auckland, Te Tai Tokerau Northland and Te Tara-o-te-Ika a Māui Coromandel from this time are refreshingly energised, using simple yet striking contrasts of black and white tones.
Ink on Paper: Aotearoa New Zealand Printmakers of the Modern Era, 11 February – 28 May 2023
Collection
Leo Bensemann Death and the Woodcutter
One of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most talented printmakers, Leo Bensemann was a natural with the notoriously difficult wood-engraving medium. The potential for highly detailed imagery suited the artist, and here he has cut the patterns and shapes with painstaking care. Shurrock encouraged printmaking with his students, and the similarities between cutting away the surfaces of wood-engraving or linocut blocks and carving sculptures would have no doubt appealed to the teacher.
(Dear Shurrie: Francis Shurrock and his contemporaries, 8 March – 13 July 2025)
Collection
Eileen Mayo New Year
Nature was the predominant theme in Eileen Mayo’s work throughout her distinguished career as a printmaker, painter and designer. She wrote and illustrated numerous books on subjects as varied as seashells, birdsand cats, including her monumental book The Story of Living Things and Their Evolution (1948). She was fascinated with the variety of forms and shapes of plants, and her subject in this work reflects the year of the seasons, as opposed to the calendar year, that begins with the emergence of spring flowers such as these crocuses.
The Golden Age 18 December 2015 – 1 May 2016
Collection
Eileen Mayo Mother and Son
Eileen Mayo has a special place in Christchurch’s art history, not only because of her extraordinary prints and illustrious career but also her tangible connections with this city. Mayo settled here in Christchurch in 1967, having established a career as a printmaker and designer in Britain and Australia. Her British contemporaries included Mabel Annesley and Clare Leighton, both of whom are included in this exhibition, and several works by these artists came into the Gallery's collection as part of a gift of British modernist prints by Redfern Gallery director Rex Nan Kivell.
Mayo adored cats. They were a constant source of companionship throughout her life and were regularly used as subjects in her art.
The Golden Age 18 December 2015 – 1 May 2016
Collection
Robert Gibbings Untitled (Kiwi and Worm)
An illustration (page 172) from 'Over the reefs' by Robert Gibbings, published by Dent, 1948.
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.
Collection
Gertrude Hermes More People
This is the largest wood engraving in the exhibition, and was cut from several blocks glued and clamped to one another. Gertrude Hermes’ interest in the human form was mirrored in her work as a sculptor, and like her contemporary Eric Gill she was able to successfully transition between both mediums. Unlike the hard-edged style of many of Gill’s wood engravings, however, Hermes’ line is sinuous and flowing with various tonal gradations throughout the work. As a sculptor she had a good understanding of human forms, which in More People seem to overlap and merge into one another.