Juliet Peter and Roy Cowan travelled to London in 1951 where they studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts and Hammersmith School of Arts and Crafts. They became enamoured with lithography and ceramics. Juliet began working in earnest with lithography and sent several prints back to Ōtautahi Christchurch for inclusion in the 1954 Group Show. As was the case for many painters, lithography appealed to Juliet because of its close association with painting. Having enjoyed working with lithography so much, the couple acquired a lithographic press which they shipped back to Aotearoa on their return in 1955. They settled in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, and by 1960 were working as full-time artists. Juliet continued to work with lithography throughout the remainder of her career, producing a substantial body of prints.

Ink on Paper: Aotearoa New Zealand Printmakers of the Modern Era, 11 February – 28 May 2023

Bill Sutton’s Private Lodgings captures a sense of the history of a notorious Ōtautahi Christchurch boarding house, the Manchester Private Hotel. This hundred-room, three-storeyed timber boarding house on the corner of Manchester and Southwark Streets had fallen into disrepair. The hotel’s address appears frequently in newspaper reports, starting with repeated requests for replacement porters and kitchen staff. Next to these were frequent court reports documenting varied misdemeanours, its occupants including bankrupts, petty criminals, arsonists, thieves, trespassers, vagrants and one murderer. Further reports spoke of damage from frequent room fires as well as unchecked borer, dry rot and rats, and the late discovery that it operated without a license, leading ultimately to its demolition in 1963.

(From Here on the Ground, 18 May – 17 November 2024)