B.
Harvest
Behind the scenes
One of my favourite drives in the South Island is along the Motueka Valley Highway past Pangatotara and on to Motueka and Riwaka - not only for the stunning landscape and beautiful Tasman Bay beyond but also for the amazing hop gardens that predominate in the area.
Gertrude Hermes, British, 1901-1983. Harvest 1929, wood-engraving. Collection Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, presented by Rex Nan Kivell, 1953.
March is harvest month for New Zealand hop growers who at the moment will be busy picking hop flowers, drying them in their distinctive shaped hop kilns, as seen in Rita Angus's watercolour below, and sending them off to craft brewers throughout New Zealand and abroad. Gertrude Hermes celebrates the occasion in her stunning wood-engraving Harvest where nature's beer making ingredients, including a flowering hop vine, are brought together.
Rita Angus, New Zealand, 1908-1970. Untitled (Hop Kilns, Motueka) 1941, watercolour. Collection Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, Harry Courtney Archer estate, 2002.
We're fortunate to now have Christchurch's Three Boys Brewery on board as sponsors. Owner and Brewer Ralph Bungard has recently opened up a new brewing plant on Ferry Road in Woolston and we would recommend his IPA (Indian Pale Ale) if you wanted to experience the distinctive aroma of New Zealand hops in action for yourself.
Check out Three Boys Brewery here
Three Boys Brewery, Woollaston.
Related
Exhibition
Beneath the Ranges
23 October 2017
Mid twentieth-century artists focus on people working the land
Collection
Rita Angus Untitled (Hop Kilns, Motueka)
At the start of 1941, Rita Angus, then a leading figure in Christchurch art circles, left the city for good. It was wartime. With many being directed into prescribed war effort work, she chose to take up employment for several months on a tobacco farm at Pangatotara, near Motueka in the Nelson district. There she worked alongside fellow pacifists, including artist Chrystabel Aitken and Courtney Archer, who owned this painting. Long days filled with demanding physical labour saw Angus harvesting and grading tobacco leaves and sometimes tending the drying kilns on the night shift. Travelling into Nelson on occasional weekends meant walking more than twelve kilometres to the nearest bus stop. Despite the demands of such a life, and shortages of art materials, Angus managed to find time to paint the local landscape, including this view of a hop kiln near Motueka. By April, she was able to report: “The harvest is over, and I am glad, as I am very, very weary of physical labour.”
(Beneath the ranges, 18 February – 23 October 2017)
