B.
A Caxton Miscellany
Behind the scenes
Make sure you head along to check out A Caxton Miscellany: The Caxton Press 1933-1958 which is now on display at Central Library Peterborough.
The exhibition presents a range of beautifully designed and printed books as well as ephemera and typographical escapades printed at the Caxton Press, one of one of New Zealand's leading 20th century publishing houses, over a twenty-five year period from 1933 to 1958. A highlight of the exhibition is the illustrative work of Leo Bensemann whose retrospective exhibition at the Christchurch Art Gallery was on display for only 12 days prior to the 22 February earthquake which forced the Gallery to close. The Peterborough street library is a very appropriate location for this exhibition as many of the items on display were printed in the same neighbourhood at various locations on Victoria, Colombo and Peterborough streets.
1956 Group Show Invitation. Group Archives, Robert and Barbara Stewart Library and Archives, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū.
Peter Simpson, Leo Bensemann's biographer, is delivering a lecture tonight focusing on the working relationship between Denis Glover and Leo Bensemann at the Caxton Press during the 1930s, 40s and 50s. This is a must for anyone with an interest in either of these two gentlemen and the work they produced at the Caxton Press. Details can be viewed here.
Giovanni Boccaccio Nastagio and the Obdurate Lady, Christchurch, 1940. Peter Dunbar Collection, Robert and Barbara Stewart Library and Archives, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū.
Related
Collection
Leo Bensemann Canterbury Spring
In 1930s New Zealand there was wide discussion about what was unique about the New Zealand situation; what it was that made us different from the rest of the world. Artists and writers began exploring ways to identify our national identity. A number of artists began painting the Canterbury High Country, most famously Rita Angus and her landscape painting of the railway station at Cass. One reviewer in 1936 observed that there was a new quality in the landscapes exhibited in Christchurch that seemed ‘to consist in a removal of the romantic mists which used to obscure mountains and the Canterbury countryside generally. The light now is clear and hard, the colours are in flat planes, and the effect is of seeing the country through a gem-like atmosphere. There is also a new romantic standpoint – an insistence on the isolation and brooding loneliness of the hills.’ It’s a statement that certainly rings true with the Canterbury paintings of Rita Angus, Leo Bensemann, Louise Henderson, Rata Lovell-Smith and Bill Sutton.
(March 2018)