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Collection
Eileen Mayo Cats in the Trees
Cats were a particularly favourite subject of Eileen Mayo but all animal and botanical subjects were a constant source of inspiration for her. She illustrated several books on nature subjects, including the monumental The Story of Living Things and Their Evolution (1948). A major influence on Mayo was Claude Flight, under whom she studied the linocut technique at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in 1928. She exhibited regularly with the British Linocut exhibitions held in London between 1929 and 1937. Mayo emigrated to Sydney in 1953 and settled in New Zealand in 1962. She taught at the University of Canterbury School of Fine Art from 1967 to 1972.
There is an information sheet available about this work.
Collection
Betty Harrison Persimmon (Study of a Racehorse)
Nora Elizabeth (Betty) Harrison grew up in rural Canterbury, where she developed a passion for horses. She brought her knowledge of horses to creating this plaster sculpture, painted to resemble bronze. It is believed to have been modelled after a photograph of a famous stud racehorse owned by King Edward VII.
Harrison was at the Canterbury College School of Art when she made this work. A top student there in the 1920s while in her teenage years, she studied there until 1930 and then went into nursing. Tragically, she caught tuberculosis from a patient and died aged just twenty-five.
(Beasts, 2015)
Collection
Michael Parekowhai My Sister, My Self
Michael Parekowhai’s My Sister, My Self recalls a once-common sight in suburban New Zealand front gardens: the concrete seal with a chrome ball on its nose, a home-grown version of the performing circus seal. Connecting to other histories, it also recalls the kekeno, the New Zealand fur seal, which had an unfortunate central role in our pre-colonial past.
At the pinnacle of this spectacular balancing act is a replica of the artist Marcel Duchamp’s famous 1913 Bicycle Wheel – a bicycle wheel upside down on a wooden stool. Duchamp made it for his own pleasure – he liked spinning the wheel in his studio – and later described it as his first ‘readymade’.
(Beasts)
Collection
Francis Upritchard Husband
Francis Upritchard’s baboon-ish Husband and Wife are like animals from an imaginary zoo, though their expressions may have been borrowed from the human visitors who come to stare at the beasts. Husband, absorbed with his own cleverness, does not mind such attention; Wife seems less comfortable, cringing under the viewers’ gaze.
Based in London, Upritchard is a sculpture graduate (1998) from the University of Canterbury’s School of Fine Arts. Since her first exhibition in London in 2000, she has shown in many different parts of the world.
(Beasts, 2015)
Collection
Francis Upritchard Wife
Francis Upritchard’s baboon-ish Husband and Wife are like animals from an imaginary zoo, though their expressions may have been borrowed from the human visitors who come to stare at the beasts. Husband, absorbed with his own cleverness, does not mind such attention; Wife seems less comfortable, cringing under the viewers’ gaze.
Based in London, Upritchard is a sculpture graduate (1998) from the University of Canterbury’s School of Fine Arts. Since her first exhibition in London in 2000, she has shown in many different parts of the world.
(Beasts, 2015)
Collection
Steve Carr A Shot in the Dark (Bear Rug)
Apparently testing the limits of incorrectness, Auckland-based multimedia artist Steve Carr commissioned a skilled woodcarver to realise his highly improbable carved bearskin rug.
Bearskin rugs during the Victorian and Edwardian era craze for taxidermy were almost a standard feature in British country houses, typically in a gentleman’s trophy room or study. They came to symbolise wild nature and distant lands, ultimately tamed. Carr’s project, however, has little to do with tameness, either in conception or in its surprisingly lifelike growling effect
(Beasts, 2015)
Collection
Artist Unknown, Balthazar Paul Ommeganck A Cow
This cow belongs to an ancient breed of cattle, once common in Belgium and the Netherlands, but now almost extinct. Called the Kempens rund (Campine cattle), it was bred for milk, cheese, butter and beef; its numbers were greatly reduced during World War I when the farming area where they lived became a battlefield.
This painting is probably by the Flemish painter Balthazar Paul Ommeganck. He was one of many admirers of the Dutch seventeenth-century painter Paulus Potter, who had started something new in painting by making farm animals his main subjects, rather than minor, incidental elements.
(Beasts, 2015)
Collection
Arthur Wardle Hill Leopards
Animal studies were popular in Victorian and Edwardian times and Hill Leopards is typical of their kind. It is unlikely that Arthur Wardle would have ever seen the African leopards in their native habitat. Rather, he observed the animals at the London Zoo and placed them in an imaginary landscape. Wardle was continuing the tradition of earlier English animal painters such as George Stubbs (1724 -1806). Painted with the fine brush treatment of the Academic tradition, the silkiness of the fur, feathery grasses and smooth rock surfaces are all presented very realistically and would have been a quite convincing likeness for the contemporary viewer. Born in London, Wardle received no formal art training but was a popular artist specialising in both domestic and wild animal subjects. Although he was self-taught, he was accepted into traditional art establishments such as the Royal Academy. He was also a member of the Royal Institute of Painters and the Royal British Colonial Society of Artists.