B.
It's that man again
Behind the scenes
One of the tasks our enforced closure is allowing us to do is to digitize more of our paper records of exhibitions at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery. We've reached 1962 – something of a golden era for new and imaginative shows curated by Peter Tomory at the Auckland Art Gallery – and sent to the McDougall where they collided headlong with the idiosyncratic curatorship of director William Baverstock.
In 1962 an exhibition of French prints arrived from Auckland containing all the superstars: Matisse, Chagall, Cézanne, Corot, Daumier, Delacroix, Duchamp, Dufy, Gauguin, Ingres, Picasso...
Reviewer Nelson Kenny was very happy with what he described as 'a superb show'. His only quibble was Baverstock's decision to hang next to it a newly acquired New Zealand landscape by Douglas Badcock.
In 1962 an exhibition of French prints from Auckland contained all the superstars: Matisse, Chagall, Cézanne, Corot, Daumier, Delacroix, Duchamp, Dufy, Gauguin, Ingres, Picasso...
Reviewer Nelson Kenny was very happy with what he described as "a superb show". His only quibble was Baversock's decision to hang a newly acquired New Zealand landscape by Douglas Badcock.
Douglas Badcock Skipper's Canyon, Shotover River. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, gift of J.L. Hay Charitable Trust 1962
Parking this juggernaut on the French masters' exquisite front lawn 'served only to emphasise its triviality'.
I ask you! Critics? They'll find fault with anything.
Related
Collection
Ivy Fife Portrait of William Sykes Baverstock OBE F.R.S.A.
Portrait of William Sykes Baverstock. Born in Norwich England, Baverstock came to New Zealand in 1901 with his father the lithographer William Baverstock Senior. Baverstock began working in the lithography department of the Weekly Press in 1910 and also attended Canterbury College School of Art part-time. In 1920 he became a working member of the Canterbury Society of Arts (CSA) and a foundation member of the Group in 1927. In 1943 he became Secretary Treasurer of the CSA, a ful -time position he held until 1959. In 1948 Baverstock was invited to become honorary Curator of the Robert McDougall Art Gallery and performed this part-time role until 1960 when he was appointed the Gallery's first director. Awarded OBE 1968 he retired later that year as Director of the Robert McDougall Art Gallery.
