What’s On
Our Design Store is having a revamp!
The shop is closed instore and online while we’re getting a fresh new look. Visit us again from 9 May
Night Market at the Gallery
Wine, beer, food, crafts, jewellery, ceramics, plants, candles, records, books, DJs (not for purchase) and more...
Spring Time is Heart-break: Contemporary Art in Aotearoa
A major exhibition featuring works that tell stories about personal and collective histories, communication, distance and relationships to our environment.
Open 7 days, 10am - 5pm
Late night Wednesday until 9pm
Free entry, free wifi
Notes
Study (Woman in a wide black hat) by Raymond McIntyre
This article first appeared as 'The Muse' in The Press on 25 August 2015.
Collection
John Gully Lake Wakatipu
In 1877, John Gully retired from his role as chief draughtsman in the Nelson Survey Office and took a month-long sketching tour of Wanaka, Milford Sound, Wakatipu and Manapouri. A year later, when he exhibited his new watercolours, he was commended by the Nelson Evening Mail for “two large watercolour paintings, the latest, and, to our mind, the best of the many that have been produced from the studio of that now celebrated artist... These represented Milford Sound and Lake Wakatipu… two nobler pictures it would be difficult to find.”
(Our Collection: 19th and 20th Century New Zealand Art, 2018)
Commentary
The wisdom of crowds
In recent years, crowdfunding and crowdsourcing have become big news in the arts. By providing a funding model that enables would-be-investors to become involved in the production of new works, they have altered traditional models of patronage. Musicians, designers, dancers and visual artists are inviting the public to finance their projects via the internet. The public are also being asked to provide wealth in the form of cultural capital through crowdsourcing projects. The Gallery has been involved in two online crowdfunding ventures – a project with a public art focus around our 10th birthday celebrations, and the purchase of a major sculpture for the city. But, although these projects have been made possible by the internet, the concept behind the funding model is certainly not new. The rise of online crowdfunding platforms also raises important questions about the role of the state in the funding and generation of artwork, and the democratisation of tastemaking. How are models of supply and demand affected? Does the freedom from more traditional funding models allow greater innovation? Do 'serious' artists even ask for money? It's a big topic, and one that is undoubtedly shaping up in PhD theses around the world already. Bulletin asked a few commentators for their thoughts on the matter.
Notes
Still life with flowers in a basket by Pieter Hardimé
This article first appeared as 'Allegory of life's beauty, brevity and fragility' in The Press on 15 August 2014.
Collection
Elizabeth Kelly Laura
Elizabeth Kelly (née Abbott) made this sculptural portrait bust while at the Canterbury College School of Art, where she studied from 1891–1901. She won regular prizes for her modelling from life, including at the 1906–07 Christchurch International Exhibition. Kelly later became one of New Zealand’s leading society portrait painters, in the 1930s showing her work in exhibitions in London, Edinburgh and Paris.
Laura was modelled on the artist’s younger sister, Laura Maude Cox (née Abbott, 1884–1957). One of the earliest sculptures in the collection by a New Zealand born artist, it is a recent gift to the city from Margaret Abbott, a great-niece of the two sisters.
(Treasury: A Generous Legacy, 18 December 2015 – 27 November 2016)
Collection
Petrus van der Velden Mountain Stream, Otira Gorge
The Rotterdam-born Petrus van der Velden arrived in New Zealand in 1890. Following his first visit to Otira Gorge in January 1891, he became engrossed with this subject, and painted its powerful, surging torrents many times over the next two years.
This painting was purchased by Gilbert Anderson, a leader in New Zealand’s frozen meat industry, also involved with the Canterbury Society of Arts. Anderson sold it to the Society in 1912; it was purchased from them in 1996 through the Community Trust and Christchurch Art Gallery Trust.
(Treasury: A Generous Legacy, 18 December 2015 – 27 November 2016)
Notes
Untitled by Meindert Hobbema
This article first appeared as 'Dutch treat' in The Press on 12 April 2013.
Collection
Pieter Hardimé Still Life with Flowers in a Basket
As well as being enjoyed for their superb decorative qualities, Dutch still life paintings were intended to be reminders of the beauty, brevity and fragility of life. An arrangement of tulips, anemone, nicotiana, jonquils, morning glory and oriental poppies, this work is attributed to the Antwerp-born Flemish painter Pieter Hardimé, who lived at The Hague from 1697.
The painting arrived from Windsor, England as an unexpected and welcome gift, shortly after the 2011 earthquakes. It was given in memory of Kathleen Muriel Whiteley (1904–1949), who had historical family ties to Christchurch, from the estate of her husband Albert, whom she married two years before her death in 1949.
(Treasury: A Generous Legacy, 18 December 2015 – 27 November 2016)
Article
The East India Company man: Brigadier-General Alexander Walker
Getting to know people can take time. While preparing for a future exhibition of early portraits from the collection, I'm becoming acquainted with Alexander Walker, and finding him a rewarding subject. Painted in 1819 by the leading Scottish portraitist of his day, Sir Henry Raeburn, Walker's portrait is wrought with Raeburn's characteristic blend of painterly vigour and attentive care and conveys the impression of a well-captured likeness.