In 1911, two years after arriving in London, Raymond McIntyre began his long association with the Goupil Gallery, the city’s leading international contemporary art dealer, and exhibited for the first time with the prestigious New English Art Club. McIntyre built his reputation on small, pared-back landscapes and stylised heads depicting young women. The influence of Japanese woodblock prints is evident, as is the work of William Nicholson, from whom he briefly took lessons. McIntyre became an established figure in London art circles, thanks also to his role as art critic for the Architectural Review.

(The Moon and the Manor House, 12 November 2021 – 1 May 2022)

Gertrude Demain Hammond was a prolific book illustrator whose formal art training began in 1879 at the Lambeth School of Art, alongside her sister Christiana, and continued at the Royal Academy Schools from 1885. She first exhibited in the academy’s prestigious annual summer show in 1886. In 1891 she sold a painting from the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours to the Empress Frederick of Germany – Queen Victoria’s eldest child, Princess Victoria – and in 1896 was elected to the institute. Gertrude and Christiana were recognised in the 1890s as Britain’s leading women illustrators. After Gertrude’s marriage in 1898, the sisters lived and worked from the same address at St Paul’s Studios, Hammersmith – a grand suite of Arts and Crafts studio apartments established as an urban artists’ colony.

A Reading from Plato was shown at the Royal Academy in 1903 before being sent to Christchurch for the 1906–07 New Zealand International Exhibition, where it was purchased by local art collector James Jamieson who, with his brother William, ran one of the country’s largest construction companies.

(The Moon and the Manor House, 12 November 2021 – 1 May 2022)

Ina te Papatahi lived at the Waipapa Māori hostel in Mechanics Bay, Tāmakimakaurau / Auckland, not far from Charles Goldie’s Hobson Street studio. She sat for him many times, the first time in 1902. The niece of prominent Ngāpuhi rangatira (chiefs) Eruera Maihi Patuone and Tāmati Waka Nene, both signatories of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, she was well-connected and introduced Goldie to many other Māori who agreed to sit for him. Ina te Papatahi was later remembered by Goldie’s friend, the writer and historian James Cowan, for her “very likeable nature”, “keen sense of humour” and the “great interest [she took] in the painting of her portrait”.

(Te Wheke, 2020)

Ana Reupene Whetuki, also known as Heeni Hirini and Heeni Phillips, belonged to the Ngāti Maru iwi, based in the fertile Hauraki region of Te Ika-a-Māui the North Island. During the 1850s the tribe’s small kainga (settlement) provided large supplies of food to the new capital of Auckland. When gold was discovered near Thames, however, European miners flooded in, rapidly establishing a town of 40,000 people. Mining, and later logging and pastoral farming, led to the destruction of traditional Māori food sources. This portrait is one of many Gottfried Lindauer painted of Reupene and her pēpi (baby), all based on a studio photograph taken by the Foy Brothers of Thames. Her son, carried close on her back in keeping with Māori custom, is remembered within Ngāti Maru for his skill in reciting whakapapa (ancestral connections). He is believed to have died in his late teens.

Ship Nails and Tail Feathers, 10 June – 22 October 2023

Between 1618 and 1648, Europe was thrown into turmoil by the Thirty Years’ War – a bitter conflict that raged between Catholic and Protestant states. It was renowned for the vicious fighting often brought about by the large mercenary armies employed on both sides. Here, Droochsloot depicts the confiscations and pillaging by mercenary soldiers as they drive Dutch villagers from their homes.

(New Dawn Fades, November 2018)