B.
Nor'western Sky
Behind the scenes
Yesterday descendents of an old Christchurch identity, John Bradley, presented a charcoal drawing by Petrus van der Velden to Christchurch Art Gallery.
Bradley Family descendents Tricia Wood, Tim Lindley and Jenny Wandl present Petrus van der Velden's charcoal drawing Nor'western Sky (1890) to Christchurch Art Gallery Director Jenny Harper and one very happy curator, Peter Vangioni.
This wonderful, dense charcoal drawing, titled Nor'western Sky, relates directly to a painting of the same scene already in the collection, a painting that was also gifted to the Gallery back in 1938 by the van Asch family which is reproduced below.
John Bradley was a part-time photographer and ran a successful house decoration business from Colombo street in the 1890s from which emerged the well-known Christchurch stained Glass company Bradley Bros around 1909. John accompanied van der Velden on his second, ill-fated trip, to the Otira Gorge in winter 1893. It was on this trip that the Rangiora photographer Alpheus Aldersley, van der Velden's and Bradley's companion, succumbed to the cold and died at the George Dyer Hotel at the bottom of the Gorge.
This drawing has been in the Bradley family since it was acquired by John Bradley from van der Velden in the early 1890s so it is with much appreciation that we accept this extremely generous gift from John Bradley's descendents.
Petrus van der Velden Nor'western sky (1890) oil on canvas, collection Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, presented by Miss van Asch, 1938.
Petrus van der Velden Nor'western Sky (1890) Charcoal, collection Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, gifted by Jenny Wandl, Tricia Wood and Tim Lindley in honour of their grandfather, Harold Gladstone Bradley of Bradley Bros, Christchurch, 2014
Related
Exhibition
McCahon / Van der Velden
18 December 2015 – 11 September 2016
An exhibition of two of New Zealand's most respected painters.
Collection
Petrus van der Velden Nor'western Sky
“‘Colour is light’ and there is no darkness at all – there is light or less light. In each part, even the darkest, there is some light and the difficulty is to get the different kinds of light showing in even quite small parts. There are no hard lines in nature – the light shines in and round everything and breaks all the hardness by modifying and diffusing the apparently sharp edges.” —Petrus van der Velden
(McCahon / Van der Velden, 18 December 2015 – 7 August 2016)
Collection
Petrus van der Velden Nor’western Sky
The hot, dry nor'west winds of Canterbury produce dramatic cloud formations and an atmospheric light. Petrus van der Velden has captured these effects with what is probably Christchurch's River Avon in the foreground. He lived near the river between 1890 and 1893. The colonial woman bent over, occupied with her task of work, has echoes of his earlier Dutch paintings, which focused on Dutch peasants at work. Van der Velden painted in a realist manner, which was influenced by his association with the Dutch Hague School of painters who favoured dark sombre tones and a loose style of brushwork. The nor'west scene is created by using strong contrasts of light and shade (chiaroscuro). Born in Rotterdam, Van der Velden established himself as a painter, particularly of marine subjects, in Holland, from where he emigrated in 1890. However, he struggled to make a living in Christchurch and in 1898 went to Sydney. He returned to settle in Wellington in 1904 but died in Auckland.