Margaret Stoddart Camping at Akaroa 1893. Album 2, Canterbury Museum, 2015.115.46-50, p.12
Exquisite Treasure Revealed
Anthony Wright and Julie King shed light on a collection of drawings and photographs compiled by artist Margaret Stoddart.
Canterbury Museum holds two albums compiled by Diamond Harbour artist Margaret Stoddart. The older of the two, containing images featured in this Bulletin, and itself currently exhibited in the Gallery, covers the period 1886–96. The album is handsomely bound in maroon, and stamped M.O.S. in gold. It contains a sort of travelogue by way of black and white photographs set amongst decorative painting, mostly of native flora, with some locality and date information.
It records her visits to the Chatham Islands, various places around Canterbury and the Southern Alps, and abroad in Tasmania and Victoria, Australia. I wish we could tell you more about how and when the album came to the Museum; the report recommending its formal accessioning in preparation for the loan to the Gallery simply notes that it has ‘unknown provenance’.
As a botanist by training (and at heart), I find the plant portraits are both pleasing in composition and botanically accurate enough to allow identification. Crossing the Hooker is embellished with two heads of the large mountain daisy Celmisia semicordata. Over the page, a photograph of a large clump of Mount Cook lilies (actually a buttercup—Ranunculus lyallii) lies over an exquisitely painted scape of its flowers which seems to leap from the page.
Museums and galleries care for a myriad of hidden treasures behind those on public display. It’s great that the reopening of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū can also shed light on some of Canterbury Museum’s unseen taonga.
Anthony Wright
Director, Canterbury Museum. Credits written by Julie King, art historian and author of Flowers into Landscape: Margaret Stoddart
Margaret Stoddart Mt Torlesse 1892. Album 2, Canterbury Museum, 2015.115.34-42, p.10
Mt Torlesse 1892
In August 1892, Margaret joined a climbing expedition to Mount Torlesse. These photographs, which were taken with a hand-held quarterplate camera, record the arduous ascent. The party spent seven hours travelling across snow and the frozen and slippery shingle to the steepest slopes, where they were roped together, and reached the summit by cutting steps into the ice. On 1 September, the Canterbury Times commented that ‘Christchurch ladies are now adding the invigorating pastime of mountaineering to their other athletic pursuits … and, are specially to be commended for the plucky way in which they took to it.’
Margaret Stoddart Camping at Akaroa 1893. Album 2, Canterbury Museum, 2015.115.46-50, p.12
Camping at Akaroa 1893
Walking parties were popular in Margaret’s social circle, and the Port Hills and Banks Peninsula were favourite destinations. One clipping in her sister Mary’s album describes an excursion to Akaroa and back, which was completed in four days. Taking the launch to Diamond Harbour, the party walked to Purau, along the Port Levy road and on to Little River, with an overnight stay at the Hill Top, before making their descent into the harbour. Margaret can be identified in the photograph, wearing a white blouse, and seated at the centre of the group. Her lively sketches illustrate the excursion.
Margaret Stoddart Mount Cook Lilies. Album 2, Canterbury Museum, 2015.115.83-84, p.21
Mount Cook Lilies
On this page, Margaret placed a photograph of Mount Cook lilies, which is combined in a highly original way with her painting of the plant, and a background of snow-capped mountains. The flowers are captured in the clear light, and the delicate white petals shine from the page. When Margaret was a young woman, she completed numerous paintings of New Zealand’s native flora. Her personal album, which was made for the perusal of her family and friends at home, provides a fascinating glimpse of the artist’s adventurous travels, and an insight into her youthful aspirations.
Margaret Stoddart The prisoners’ huts on Orea flat, overlooking Waitangi Bay, Chatham Islands, 1886 (above) with the Lament of Te Kooti, translated by H. Parata at Ōtaki, January 1893. Album 2, Canterbury Museum, 2015.115.3-4, p.1
The prisoners’ huts on Orea flat, overlooking Waitangi Bay, Chatham Islands, 1886 (above) with the Lament of Te Kooti, translated by H. Parata at Ōtaki, January 1893
On 19 April 1886, Margaret travelled to the Chatham Islands, where she stayed for over a year painting the landscape and indigenous flora. This drawing in her album depicts the huts on Orea flat overlooking Waitangi Bay, where the Māori leader and prophet Te Kooti had suffered unjust imprisonment and exile. In 1893, Margaret added a sheet inscribed with verses from the Lament of Te Kooti translated by H. Parata. These were framed within a painted border in the hammerhead shark design that could be seen on the kowhaiwhai panels of Rangiātea, the great Māori church built at Ōtaki.
Margaret Stoddart Crossing the Hooker. Album 2, Canterbury Museum, 2015.115.77-82, p.20
Crossing the Hooker
These photographs come from the attempted ascent of Mount Cook, made in November 1893 by celebrated mountaineers Marmaduke Dixon, George Mannering and Tom Fyfe. This was the first expedition to use skis as a means of combatting the snow-covered crevasses. The skis had been ingeniously constructed from the blades of a harvester by Dixon, the brother of Rosa Dixon (later Spencer Bower), and a close companion of Margaret around this time. He is standing in the foreground of the photograph in the centre, which is crowned with a painting of the mountain daisy, a plant that flowers in spring and early summer.
Related reading: Watercolour, Travel, In the Vast Emptiness, Margaret Stoddart: Nature's Artist
Notes
Julie King, 1945–2018
It was with much sadness that the staff of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū heard of the sudden death of local art historian Julie King in early December. Julie had developed a close relationship with the Gallery over the years, not only as a curator, researcher, writer, speaker and key member of the Friends of Christchurch Art Gallery, but also as a regular visitor to exhibitions, talks and events.
Exhibition
Olivia Spencer Bower: Views from the Mainland
A selection of watercolours by one of Canterbury’s most treasured artists.
Artist Profile
Doris Lusk: An Inventive Eye
In the strange, stunned afterlife that ticked slowly by in the first few years following Christchurch’s February 2011 earthquake, a curious note of recognition sounded through the shock and loss. As a massive programme of demolitions relentlessly hollowed out the city, many buildings were incompletely removed and lingered on for months as melancholy remains – stumps abandoned in a forlorn urban forest. Hideous, sculptural, beautiful; they bore compelling resemblance to a body of paintings created in the city more than three decades earlier.
Exhibition
Untitled (Bathers)
Séraphine Pick's lush watercolour offers a utopian vision in the car park elevator.
Exhibition
In the Vast Emptiness
The Canterbury landscape as captured by twentieth century painters.
Notes
New Brighton by Margaret Stoddart
This article first appeared as 'Stoddart: an artist for all seasons' in The Press on 17 November 2015.
Exhibition
Nature’s Artist
The dazzling watercolours of an adventurous and trailblazing Canterbury artist.
Notes
Canterbury Landscape by Colin McCahon
In 2014 we purchased an important landscape work by Colin McCahon. Curator Peter Vangioni speaks about this new addition to Christchurch Art Gallery’s collection.
Notes
Mountains, Cass by Rita Angus
This article first appeared as 'The wonders of waterolours' in The Press on 11 August 2015.
Collection
Colin McCahon Canterbury Landscape
'Pākihi is a word for a place that is bare or without trees. The Pākehā surveyors called these cleared areas parkee from the Māori word for no trees, pākihi. Kā Pākihi-Whakatekateka-A-Waitaha: the treeless place, the joyous strutting march through the treeless land of south Canterbury, Waitaha – that’s the old name for the Canterbury Plains.' —Sir Tipene O’Regan
(He Rau Maharataka Whenua: A Memory of Land, 17 September 2016 – 18 February 2017)
Notes
100 years of the Cass field station
Last weekend the University of Canterbury Biology Department celebrated the 100th anniversary of the field station at Cass with a symposium on Cass followed up with a field trip to the station.
Notes
Wainui - to the west of the long harbour
"I like Wainui, quaint, charming, rather like a Pieter Bruegel subject with the haymaking in progress." Rita Angus to Douglas Lilburn, 1943
Notes
An Otira stream (also known as Mountain Rata) by Margaret Stoddart
This article first appeared as 'Otira colour captured in all its summer glory' in The Press on 28 February 2014.
Collection
Doris Lusk Okains Bay, Banks Peninsula
'Now, the original name of Okains Bay is Kā Awatea. It’s an old settlement area, the old kāika [village] on the peninsula – and of course a place of mahika kai [food gathering], a zone receiving or exploiting the treasure left around the peninsula by Marokura who endowed the place with all things growing in the sea: fish, seaweeds, shellfish and so on.
'The region was all part of the work of Tu-Te-Raki-Whanoa, the atua [demi-god] who shaped the land, the engineer, the repairer of the wrecked waka [canoe] that came to be known as Te Waipounamu [the South Island]. When Tu-Te-Raki-Whanoa finished on the east coast, he went west to the Paparoa. There he created his first valley, Ka Māwheranui o Ka Kuha o Tu Te Rakiwhanoa, which means the river that runs to its sea, at Greymouth. His last big challenge was to become Fiordland. There he was assisted by Hine-Nui-Te-Pō – this was before she became the Mother who gathers in the dead. Tu-Te-Raki-Whanoa was the re-shaper, the salvager; Hine-Nui-Te-Pō was like an adorner, she worked with him as an assistant.
'When the Pākehā arrived, much of the peninsula was heavily forested with Podocarp. You can still see old fossilised tōtara stumps lying all around the tops of the hills. As I understand it, Christchurch was built off those forests.' —Sir Tipene O’Regan
(He Rau Maharataka Whenua: A Memory of Land, 17 September 2016 – 18 February 2017)
Collection
Rita Angus Haycocks, Wainui
'What makes Wainui significant, apart from its status as a mahika kai [food gathering area] for mussels and karengo [an edible seaweed], is that it sits beneath Tuhiraki [a mountain on Banks Peninsula, across the harbour from Akaroa]. It’s the beginning of the South Island’s traditional history. The metaphor is used that the atua [demi-god] Rākaihautū is striking his kō [digging stick] named Tuhiraki into the ground, creating, making, discovering the lakes. The furthest one south he creates is Lake Whakatipu Waitai, also known as Lake McKerrow, at the top end of Fiordland. Rākaihautū comes inland again and journeys up the eastern side of the island where he meets up with his son Rokohuia – I think around Waihao in south Canterbury at Wainono Lagoon, one of the historic hāpua [lagoons] of Kāi Tahu. Father and son are then joyously reunited to the settlement of Akaroa, which they developed. When they get there, Rākaihautū places his kō across the ridge of the hill above Wainui and changes the name to Tuhiraki – and it’s been a treasured name ever since. The French came and called it Mount Bossu, the hunchback; the hunch is the foot of the kō. The renaming has been attended to now.
'This is the base below Tuhiraki [also known as Mount Bossu]. It’s a mahika kai [food gathering area]. What’s important is the narrative in the hill. From Akaroa, you look across to Wainui, all the way along the peninsula and out over the heads. This is traditionally the centre of the evolution of Waitaha occupation [the Waitaha were an early people who occupied the South Island prior to the Kāti Māmoe and then Kāi Tahu people]. The march of Rākaihautū [the first ancestor of the Waitaha people] and his son Rokohuia gives the ancient name of Canterbury: Kā Pākihi-Whakatekateka-A-Waitaha, the strutting joyous march of Waitaha.' —Sir Tipene O’Regan
(He Rau Maharataka Whenua: A Memory of Land, 17 September 2016 – 18 February 2017)
Collection
Olivia Spencer Bower Kaikoura Country
'The Māori name for Kaikōura is Te Ahi Kaikōura o Tama Ki Te Raki, the place where Tama Ki Te Raki [a mythical exploring ancestor] cooked his crayfish. What’s significant is the Kaikōura Ranges. The south Seaward Kaikōuras were named The Lookers On Mountains by Captain James Cook, so called because when Cook was coming down the coast some twelve miles offshore he encountered several double canoes out fishing. He kept trying to induce them to come alongside the ship, but every time the ship came towards them they paddled away and just sat watching – so he called the mountains behind them The Lookers On.
'Another interesting thing about the mountains of the Kaikōura territory: you’ve got Te Parinui o Whiti [the White Bluffs], one of Kāi Tahu’s marker boundaries, and the highest peak, Tapuae o Uenuku. Tapuae means footsteps, the sacred footsteps of Uenuku [a prominent Māori ancestor]. Uenuku is said to have been put ashore from the Uruao or Uruaokapuarangi canoe [said to have come from Hawaiki, led by Rākaihautū], and he climbed the mountain and named it Te Tapuae o Uenuku. The mountains behind have many different names; most of the Seaward Kaikōuras have Māori names. Behind them is the Awatere valley, inland; Tapuae o Uenuku is at the head of those valleys.' —Sir Tipene O’Regan
(He Rau Maharataka Whenua: A Memory of Land, 17 September 2016 – 18 February 2017)
Collection
Archibald Nicoll A Canterbury landscape
Having lost his leg while fighting on the Somme during World War I, Archibald Nicoll was confined to painting landscapes in close proximity to where he was able to drive. This is why so many of his landscapes have roads as a central motif. Rather than a hindrance, however, Nicoll put his car to good use and revelled in the freedom it offered, driving all over Canterbury to paint. He would often combine painting excursions with family holidays. The scene in this work is thought to be Balcairn Downs inland from the town of Amberley in North Canterbury.
In the vast emptiness, 8 January - 21 August 2016
Notes
Godley House, Diamond Harbour by Margaret Stoddart
This article first appeared as 'Stoddart's summer' in The Press on 15 February 2013.
Notes
CASS
This week 77 years ago Rita Angus visited Cass on a sketching holiday with Louise Henderson and Julia Scarvell that resulted in several paintings including the Christchurch Art Gallery's Cass.
Notes
CASS
André Hemer's exhibition CASS is well worth a visit if you are near the Christchurch Art Gallery's space above NG on Madras street.
Notes
Margaret Stoddart: born Diamond Harbour 3 October, 1865.
While the Gallery remains closed to the public the permanent collection continues to grow with several generous gifts and bequests being received recently.
Notes
Diamond that shines
The ruins of Diamond Harbour's Godley House may have finally been removed but the stunning sparkling views out across Lyttelton Harbour remain.
Notes
Another nor’wester descends on Canterbury
Some people fear them, others revel in the unforgiving dry heat – love them or hate them the legendary Canterbury nor'wester is one of the defining features of this region in the summer months and there is a real doozy blowing outside at the moment.
Notes
Heart in the high country: Austen Deans (1915 - 2011)
For Austen Deans, OBE, painting was an expression of his love of the outdoors and, in particular, the Canterbury high country.
Notes
Happy birthday Margaret
Margaret Stoddart was born on this day in 1865 at Diamond Harbour. Here she is in 1909:
Collection
Douglas MacDiarmid Hills from Annat
After a stint at the Wigram Air Force Base in Christchurch with the Royal New Zealand Air Force during World War II, Douglas MacDiarmid found the need to get away to the country for a well-earned sketching holiday. It was here that Hills from Annat was completed. He said of this time:
'I had been able to lay my hands on the last covered wagon in the South Island, also to hire a fine white mare. Off we drove in a flourish then for a month, Blanche, Buddy, me. We were headed for the rolling country where the Canterbury Plains are not yet hills finishing as Alps. At no more than a clip-clop pace it is possible to approach with peaceful observation, meditation merging as no motor vehicle will allow.'
In the vast emptiness, 8 January - 21 August 2016
Notes
Sutton high-fives McCahon
Nothing made it into a W.A. Sutton painting by accident, and the white line that rises diagonally through the sky in Plantation Series II is no exception.
Collection
Rita Angus Wainui, Akaroa
'What makes Wainui significant, apart from its status as a mahika kai [food gathering area] for mussels and karengo [an edible seaweed], is that it sits beneath Tuhiraki [a mountain on Banks Peninsula, across the harbour from Akaroa]. It’s the beginning of the South Island’s traditional history. The metaphor is used that the atua [demi-god] Rākaihautū is striking his kō [digging stick] named Tuhiraki into the ground, creating, making, discovering the lakes. The furthest one south he creates is Lake Whakatipu Waitai, also known as Lake McKerrow, at the top end of Fiordland. Rākaihautū comes inland again and journeys up the eastern side of the island where he meets up with his son Rokohuia – I think around Waihao in south Canterbury at Wainono Lagoon, one of the historic hāpua [lagoons] of Kāi Tahu. Father and son are then joyously reunited to the settlement of Akaroa, which they developed. When they get there, Rākaihautū places his kō across the ridge of the hill above Wainui and changes the name to Tuhiraki – and it’s been a treasured name ever since. The French came and called it Mount Bossu, the hunchback; the hunch is the foot of the kō. The renaming has been attended to now.
'This is the base below Tuhiraki [also known as Mount Bossu]. It’s a mahika kai [food gathering area]. What’s important is the narrative in the hill. From Akaroa, you look across to Wainui, all the way along the peninsula and out over the heads. This is traditionally the centre of the evolution of Waitaha occupation [the Waitaha were an early people who occupied the South Island prior to the Kāti Māmoe and then Kāi Tahu people]. The march of Rākaihautū [the first ancestor of the Waitaha people] and his son Rokohuia gives the ancient name of Canterbury: Kā Pākihi-Whakatekateka-A-Waitaha, the strutting joyous march of Waitaha.' —Sir Tipene O’Regan
(He Rau Maharataka Whenua: A Memory of Land, 17 September 2016 – 18 February 2017)
Notes
Godley House
The Press announced today that another iconic Banks Peninsula building is to be demolished, Godley House at Diamond Harbour.
Interview
Talking Bensemann
Leo Bensemann was one of the most respected figures in the Christchurch arts scene, and played a pivotal role in influential arts collective The Group. Always something of an odd-man-out, he produced a large body of work across several different disciplines before his death in 1986. In an attempt to get a fuller picture of the man himself, Gallery director Jenny Harper spoke to two artists who knew him well, John Coley and Quentin MacFarlane.
Artist Profile
Leo Bensemann: an art venture
Leo Bensemann (1912–1986) was a pivotal figure bridging the worlds of literature and visual arts – a go-between like no other. Peter Simpson is an authority on this distinctive artist.
Exhibition
W.A. Sutton: Watercolours of Italy
An exhibition featuring a selection of works from Bill Sutton's 1973–4 Italian sojourn, highlighting his exquisite skill as a draughtsman and watercolourist.
Exhibition
Picturing the Peninsula
A selection of works by some of New Zealand’s most significant historical and contemporary artists responding to the unique landscapes of Banks Peninsula Te Pataka o Rakaihautu.
Collection
Margaret Stoddart Camiers, France
Nature's Own Voice, 6 February - 26 July 2009
Margaret Stoddart worked exclusively as a watercolourist and painted plein-air landscapes from early in her career. Her work developed towards an impressionistic style while she was based in Europe between 1898 and 1906. At this time she began exploring the various atmosphericeffects experienced while painting plein-air, as seen in Camiers, France, where Stoddart uses very wet washes of colour to capture the hazy conditions of the scene.
Collection
Margaret Stoddart Godley House, Diamond Harbour
On her return from Europe in 1907, Margaret Stoddart lived in Godley House with her mother and sister and remained there until the family’s Diamond Harbour estate was sold off in 1913. The family were keen gardeners, as can be seen by the charming cottage garden. This is one of a number of paintings Stoddart did in Diamond Harbour and shows the style she had developed during her time in Europe. The expressive opaque watercolour treatment is combined with fine fluid washes applied in a quick and direct manner, out of doors before the subject. Stoddart was born in Diamond Harbour, Christchurch, but in 1876 the family sailed for Britain and she received her early education in Edinburgh. The family returned to New Zealand in 1879 and in 1882 Stoddart enrolled at the Canterbury College School of Art. She was a founding member of the Palette Club whose members were concerned with painting out of doors. She travelled to Europe in 1898.
Collection
Margaret Stoddart Mountain Lilies
Margaret Stoddart painted many scenes of the Southern Alps, particularly in the Mount Cook National Park region in South Canterbury. Indeed, the lilies featured here are known as ‘Mount Cook’ lilies.
By the time she painted this work, Stoddart was widely recognised as the leading New Zealand flower painter of the time. The immediacy of the detail suggests that she did at least the preliminary work on site, rather than in the studio. The watercolour washes have the Impressionistic style that became Stoddart’s hallmark.
Stoddart was born in Diamond Harbour, on Banks Peninsula, but in 1876 the family sailed for Britain and she received her early education in Edinburgh. The family returned to New Zealand in 1879 and in 1882 Stoddart enrolled at the Canterbury College School of Art. She was a founding member of the Palette Club whose members were concerned with painting out of doors. After living in England for several years, Stoddart returned to New Zealand in 1907 and settled in Diamond Harbour.
Collection
Margaret Stoddart Roses
For the exhibition I See Red (5 December 2007 - 23 November 2008) this work was displayed with the following label: ‘My love is like a red, red rose’ goes the old Scottish song. Red roses are a well-known symbol for true love. Thank Robbie Burns for the song, and Margaret Stoddart for this bowl of overflowing roses, where the red is the red of a living, beating heart, a red that unfolds into full bloom, promising love that will last.
Collection
William Sutton Hills and Plains, Waikari
William (Bill) Sutton spent most of his life in Christchurch, apart from two years from 1947–49 studying and painting in Britain and Europe. This time away helped attune his eyes to the distinctive qualities of the local regional landscape. Teaching full-time at the Canterbury College School of Art from that time, Sutton lived in a rented studio flat overlooking Victoria Square and became the owner of a Matchless motorbike – upgraded to a 500cc BSA Golden Flash in 1956 – on which he’d leave the city on his weekends in pursuit of countryside to paint.
Human presence has reshaped this landscape, with its bending macrocarpa windbreaks, simple corrugated iron structures and undulating patchwork fields. A palette of subtle ochres, greys and gold presents a characteristically Canterbury scene and typifies the work for which Sutton became appreciated and known.
(Beneath the ranges 18 February – 23 October 2017)
Collection
William Sutton Te Tihi o Kahukura and Sky, I
This painting by Bill Sutton expands our view of a familiar site on Christchurch’s Port Hills, encouraging the viewer to consider what mysteries may have been present before the arrival of Māori tangata whenua, the people of the land. Te Tihi o Kahukura, or the Citadel of Kahukura, is the first name of Castle Rock, the foregrounded point at the left of the painting. The extended Māori name translates as ‘the Citadel of the Rainbow God (and a) sky full of boiling clouds roaring around all over the place’. According to Kāi Tahu tradition, Kahukura is the atua, or god, who clothed the land; Kahukura later transformed to become the atua of rainbows. Here, Sutton’s interest in landscape, light and colour is applied to a location of significance for Māori. There is an intimacy in the site for Sutton, as he was able to see it “from my upstairs back-landing window”. Sutton’s house remains in what is now known as ‘the red zone’, an earthquake-battered place of an undetermined future.
(Te Tihi o Kahukura: The Citadel of Kahukura, 18 Februay 2017 - 18 May 2018)
Collection
Rita Angus A Goddess Of Mercy
The Canterbury landscape was violently shaken by the sequence of earthquakes that began in the dead of night on 4 September 2010. Parts of the vast Canterbury Plains, including the reclaimed swampland that Christchurch was built on, were literally ripped apart, while many of the volcanic outcrops and cliff faces on Banks Peninsula shattered and fell. Memories of those scenes provide a stark contrast to the serene, idealised Canterbury landscape watched over here by Rita Angus's A Goddess of Mercy, with its green and golden pastures, ploughed fields and foothills extending to the mountains beyond. Radiating peace, order and oneness with the landscape, it offers a reassuring vision after the uncertainty, stress and loss of living through the earthquakes.
In the vast emptiness, 8 January - 21 August 2016
Collection
Trevor Moffitt Rakaia Series No. 37
Trevor Moffitt had a deep love for inland Canterbury that was in part fostered by his obsession with fishing. In the mid 1970s he purchased a bach at Lake Clearwater, inland from the Canterbury town of Ashburton. This became his favourite spot to retreat from city life and experience the outdoors. In 1982, after the death of his wife, Alison, Moffitt began the series that this work is from. He said in an interview:
'After Alison died I’d had enough of people, so I went out and painted the Rakaia River series. I had just been emotionally drained. […] The best thing I could do was go off on the weekend and paint the river. I poured all my grief and tears into depicting the waters of the Rakaia.'
In the vast emptiness, 8 January - 21 August 2016
Collection
Rata Lovell-Smith Bridge, Mt Cook Road
'This is the Mount Cook Road, and there are many bridges on that road. The people of Ngāi Tūāhuriri would go inland into the McKenzie [just below where this location is painted] for hunting high country weka [native woodhen] with dogs. They'd carry their empty packs of pōhā [kelp bags to hold preserved birds] with them to the hunting area, catch the weka and process the birds up there. They’d carry the pōhā out, and meet people coming from the south also going up to those high country plains. It was a summer exercise. Towards the end of summer the birds are fat. You preserve them like tītī [muttonbirds] in their own fat.' —Sir Tipene O’Regan
(He Rau Maharataka Whenua: A Memory of Land, 17 September 2016 – 18 February 2017)
Collection
Esther Studholme Hope Mackenzie Country
The viewpoint Esther Hope chose for this work allowed her to show the vast expanse of the Mackenzie Country, which stretches out before the viewer towards the Southern Alps. This region was a favourite subject of Hope’s, one that she returned to throughout her career.
She said that “this land is a part of me … I have never regretted my choice of environment [and] have always felt a strong feeling of primitiveness [here].” Hope’s mature style is seen here, with broad wet washes of colour confidently used.
Hope was born near Geraldine, South Canterbury. She was first introduced to painting through her mother, Emily Studholme, an accomplished amateur artist. She also took lessons from Edwyn Temple and Margaret Stoddart. In 1912 Hope left New Zealand for England where she enrolled at the Slade School of Art, London. In 1919 she returned to New Zealand, married Henry Norman Hope and settled at the Grampians Station in the Mackenzie Country.
Collection
Margaret Stoddart An Otira Stream (also known as Mountain Rata)
Margaret Stoddart first made the trip along the West Coast Road over Arthur’s Pass and through the Otira Gorge in April 1896, travelling in a hired wagon with several companions. Around 1927 Stoddart completed several watercolours of the gorge including An Otira Stream (also known as Mountain rata). In this work the artist combines her interest in flower painting with landscape to complete a vibrant vision of southern rata in full bloom amongst the rugged Otira terrain. In the summer months of January and February the mountain slopes of the Otira Gorge come alive with the crimson flowers of southern rata.
Collection
William Sutton Dry September
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)
Collection
Juliet Peter Nor’west
According to Kāi Tahu, within the story of the creation of Te Waipounamu (the South Island), Aoraki was an atua, or demi-god, who left the home of his father, Raki, in the heavens and voyaged with his brothers to visit Raki’s first wife Poharora o Te Po. They set out to return to his father, but there was a fault in the karakia (prayer) for their return. Aoraki’s canoe – Te Waka o Aoraki – was stranded, and Aoraki and his brothers turned to stone, becoming the mountains of Kā Tiritiri o Te Moana, the Southern Alps.
'This work is interesting because it offers an unusual perspective on Aoraki [Mount Cook] – but Aoraki is full of different perspectives in Kāi Tahu culture. The mountain is, above all, a symbol of our tribal and regional identity. That’s got nothing much to do with its location – although that obviously commands cultural attention – but mainly because of its centrality in the Te Waipounamu creation story. And it is a distinctive creation story, part of a creation myth which has survived here in the remote outskirts of Polynesia while it has been lost at the centre where it came from. Aoraki made us distinctive, and it makes all people distinctive that live under its span. Juliet Peter’s depiction of it is unusual, but every way you look at Aoraki you’ve got a different perspective.' —Sir Tipene O’Regan
(He Rau Maharataka Whenua: A Memory of Land, 17 September 2016 – 18 February 2017)
Collection
Colin S. Lovell-Smith Sunset, Craigieburn
Colin Lovell-Smith often went on painting trips to this area with his wife Rata, who was also a landscape painter. Craigieburn is in the Southern Alps, about 100 kilometres northwest of Christchurch. Although set beside a small riverbed close to the main road, the painting focuses on the steep eroded slopes of the Craigieburn Range. Lovell-Smith has paid close attention to the landform details, capturing the distinctive qualities of the Canterbury mountain region. Shades of ochre are subtly orchestrated with the soft grey of the predominant greywacke rocks. Born in Christchurch, Lovell-Smith studied at the Canterbury College School of Art then worked for his father’s printing business. During World War I Lovell-Smith was with the Royal Engineers on the Balkan Front and was subsequently awarded the Serbian Gold Medal of Merit for his work. On his return to Christchurch in 1919 he taught, first at St Andrew’s College, then at the School of Art, of which he was Director from 1947 until his death.
Collection
Doris Lusk Canterbury Plains From Cashmere Hills
Bill Sutton once commented that “on the Canterbury Plains you don’t look up and down but from side to side”, which seems entirely appropriate for this vast landscape painting of the plains by his friend Doris Lusk.
In the vast emptiness, 8 January - 21 August 2016
Collection
Austen A Deans Camp in the Kowai
For Austen Deans, painting was an expression of his love of the outdoors and, in particular, the Canterbury high country. Born at Riccarton House, Christchurch in 1915, he grew up on the family farm near Sheffield in North Canterbury (and near Kowai, the subject of this 1952 painting). He trained at the Canterbury College School of Art between 1934 and 1938, where he continued his interest in the outdoors through membership of the College tramping club. He once said that he had 'rather wished to be a mountain guide', but his mother dissuaded him from that early ambition. Though he loved sculpture, he specialised in painting because it allowed him to work outdoors rather than being tied to a city studio. Deans was the last of a generation of painters, which also included Doris Lusk and Bill Sutton, whose work was strongly focused on the Canterbury landscape. He is most well-known for his paintings of Mt Peel and the surrounding area, where he lived and worked for over 60 years. 'It was really my attraction to the mountains that started me painting' he said, 'and it's never left me'.
(Turn, Turn, Turn: A Year in Art, 27 July 2019 – 8 March 2020)
Collection
Louise Henderson Plain and Hills
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)
Collection
Margaret Stoddart Bush Fire, Paraparaumu
It is thought this nuggetty watercolour painting was completed shortly after Margaret Stoddart’s return to New Zealand from an extended period studying and painting in Europe. Acrid smoke billows upwards as the dense native bush, presumably being cleared for agricultural purposes, is consumed by fire. This is a tough, poignant and unusual subject for Stoddart – far removed from the rather more subdued still-life subjects for which she became so highly regarded. Stoddart’s complete mastery with watercolour is seen in her beautiful handling and contrasting of washes of colour, from the dense darks of the bush to the white smoke. (March 2018)
Collection
Margaret Stoddart Diamond Harbour
For the exhibition Picturing the Peninsula (21 April - 22 July 2007), this work was displayed with this label:
Diamond Harbour lies on the South side of Lyttelton harbour across from the town of Lyttelton between Purau Bay and Charteris Bay. It was named by the artist’s father, Mark Stoddart, from “the glitter of the sun-track on the water, always very noticeable from that side of the harbour.” This view chosen by Margaret Stoddart looks out across Diamond Harbour from above the wharf and is in the artist’s mature style being completed soon after her return home in 1907 after studying art abroad.
Stoddart was born and grew up in Diamond Harbour where her father had settled in 1851. She regularly painted in the region and often incorporated flowers into the landscape such as the blossoms seen in this work.
Collection
Margaret Stoddart The Moors
Margaret Stoddart’s painting style altered dramatically during the period she spent in Britain between 1898 and 1906. She was based at St Ives, Cornwall, where there was a large contingent of artists whose interests lay primarily in impressionism and plein air painting.
Although the exact location of The Moors is not known for certain, the painting highlights Stoddart’s development at this time. Painted outdoors, loosely applied wet washes of subdued colour effectively convey the overcast atmospheric conditions, which are contrasted with several brightly coloured flowers in the foreground.
Stoddart was born in Diamond Harbour on Banks Peninsula, but in 1876 the family sailed for Britain and she received her early education in Edinburgh. The family returned to New Zealand in 1879, and in 1882 Stoddart enrolled at the Canterbury College School of Art. She was a founding member of the Palette Club, whose members were concerned with painting outdoors.
Collection
Margaret Stoddart Anna Ollivier Roses
A popular flower in New Zealand at this time, roses were also a favourite subject of Margaret Stoddart’s throughout her career. The Impressionist approach she has used in this watercolour is typical of Stoddart’s mature style. Her use of broad washes and loose handling help to capture the atmospheric effects of light falling on the roses. On her return from Europe in 1906 Stoddart’s approach was considered too ‘modern’ by many critics, however she gradually developed a reputation for her sensitive landscapes and flower studies. Stoddart was born in Diamond Harbour, on Banks Peninsula, but in 1876 the family sailed for Britain. They returned to New Zealand in 1879 and in 1882 Stoddart enrolled at the Canterbury College School of Art. She was a founding member of the Palette Club whose members were concerned with painting out of doors. After living in England for several years, Stoddart returned to New Zealand and settled in Diamond Harbour.
Collection
Rita Angus Mountains, Cass
“I was glad to see this painting again for a few minutes. […] I was ‘knocked out’ by the clear admission of truth. I am amazed that at one time (years ago), and in about three to four hours, I had the power & courage to paint Cass.”
—Rita Angus
In the vast emptiness, 8 January - 21 August 2016
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)
Collection
Ivy Fife The Long Lookout
'Tu-Te-Raki-Whanoa, the son of Aoraki, is the atua [demi-god] who shapes the wrecked waka to ready it for people. His first great task is to defeat the south-easterly winds roaring along the side of the wreck. He invents peninsulas. He rakes all the rubbish of the wreckage and piles it up like a gigantic break water. Thus you have the Canterbury Plains and a sheltered place for his next invention, Whakaraupō [Lyttelton Harbour] and Akaroa Harbour. He then depresses his heel and creates Waihora [Lake Ellesmere], later claimed by the exploring ancestor, Rākaihautū, as Te Kete ika o Te Rākaihautū [the fish basket of Rākaihautū].' —Sir Tipene O’Regan
(He Rau Maharataka Whenua: A Memory of Land, 17 September 2016 – 18 February 2017)
Collection
Margaret Stoddart Old Cornish Orchard
Margaret Stoddart was living in St Ives, Cornwall, throughout much of 1902 when this work was painted. Orchards and woodland scenes, particularly in spring when the trees were in blossom, were popular subjects with her and many of her contemporaries. Stoddart was interested in the Newlyn School’s naturalistic style of painting, working directly from nature. In this watercolour she has over-painted the work with an opaque body-colour to represent the blossom. She painted several works exploring the effects of light on blossom at various times of the day. Stoddart was born in Diamond Harbour, Christchurch, but in 1876 the family sailed for Britain and she received her early education in Edinburgh. The family returned to New Zealand in 1879 and in 1882 Stoddart enrolled at the Canterbury College School of Art. She was a founding member of the Palette Club whose members were concerned with painting out of doors. After again living in England for several years, Stoddart returned to New Zealand in 1906 and settled at Diamond Harbour.
(Turn, Turn, Turn: A Year in Art, 27 July 2019 – 8 March 2020)
Collection
Margaret Stoddart Wallflowers
Flower painting was a popular subject with Victorian colonial women artists. It was considered more appropriate than painting landscapes, which tended to be dominated by male artists. Early in her career and influenced by her studies at the Canterbury College School of Art, Margaret Stoddart painted Wallflowers in a careful manner. The School placed an emphasis on close observation and truth to nature. The Australian botanical artist Ellis Rowan encouraged Stoddart and wrote in the Australian Town and Country Journal that, ‘Her grouping, colouring, form and harmony were perfect.’ Stoddart was born in Diamond Harbour, on Banks Peninsula, but in 1876 the family sailed for Britain and she received her early education in Edinburgh. The family returned to New Zealand in 1879 and in 1882 Stoddart enrolled at the School of Art. She was a founding member of the Palette Club whose members were concerned with painting out of doors. After living in England for several years, Stoddart returned to New Zealand in 1907 and settled in Diamond Harbour.
Collection
Rita Angus Cass
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)
Collection
Colin S. Lovell-Smith Evening
'Well, this is Haumuri Point south of Kaikōura. Pākehā called it Amuri – you’ve got Amuri Motors, Amuri buildings, Amuri district or whatever. It is called Haumuri, and it was always explained to me that the name was given because the wind there is always behind you.
'In the Te Waipounamu creation story, Tu-Te-Raki-Whanoa had two assistant atua [demi-gods], Marokura and Kahukura. We could say that Kahukura was in charge of all parks and reserves, and Marokura was in charge of the Ministry of Fisheries. The whole coast is inhabited by the work of those atua. The land is clothed and beautified by Kahukura. Marokura goes off to make his own peninsula at Kaikōura. He was a fishing atua – he wasn’t much of a civil engineer – so it’s only a small peninsula. He puts the great riches of the sea into the coast, which was his skill. The coast is called Te Tai o Marokura; some people call it Te Koha o Marokura.' —Sir Tipene O’Regan
(He Rau Maharataka Whenua: A Memory of Land, 17 September 2016 – 18 February 2017)
Collection
Rata Lovell-Smith Hawkins
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)
Collection
Cedric Savage Summer Kowai, 1934
Kowai Bush is a farming area in the foothills of Central Canterbury, where typically the summers are very hot and dry. Like other Canterbury landscape artists of the 1930s, Cedric Savage was interested in recording the unique features of the Canterbury region. He was essentially a plein air (outdoors) artist concerned with painting directly from nature but in Summer, Kowai he has worked in a careful manner, keeping control over the application of paint. Born in Christchurch, Savage studied at the Canterbury College School of Art. He later studied with Sydney Lough Thompson (1877-1973) and Archibald Nicoll (1886 - 1953). After travelling, he returned to New Zealand in 1933, settling in Christchurch where he became vice-president of the New Zealand Society of Artists. Savage’s eyes were injured during World War II and for the rest of his life he could only paint outdoors. Although he won the Kelliher Art Award in 1962, Savage felt unappreciated in New Zealand and spent many years living away from the country, finally settling in Greece.
Collection
Margaret Stoddart Storm Clouds, Blythburgh, Suffolk (also known as Suffolk Village)
‘Storm clouds, Blythburgh, Suffolk’ is typical of Margaret Stoddart’s growing interest in impressionism and painting outdoors while based in England between 1898 and 1906. The atmospheric conditions of the impending storm above Blythburgh have been rendered directly using wet washes of colour. Stoddart travelled widely, taking sketching trips to France, Italy and throughout Britain, often seeking out picturesque villages such as Blythburgh as her subjects. Stoddart enjoyed living at St Ives, Cornwall. The town’s reputation as a plein-air (open air) artists’ colony made it a magnet for New Zealand artists including Frances Hodgkins and Dorothy Richmond, who visited Stoddart there in 1902. (Brought to Light, November 2009)
Notes
The Watercolour Collection
The Gallery's Watercolour Collection had modest beginnings, but over the past 70 years it has grown steadily by gift and purchase and, of all the Collections, still maintains a largely traditional emphasis. When the Gallery opened in June 1932, just 28 of the 128 paintings on display were watercolours and, of these, 11 were by British artists and 17 by New Zealanders. Among the mostly nineteenth century British watercolours were those by Helen Allingham, Edgar Bundy, Matthew Hale, Laura Knight, William Lee Hankey and Ernest Waterlow. In contrast, the New Zealand watercolours were by mostly contemporary or early twentieth century artists and included works by James Cook, Olivia Spencer Bower, Margaret Stoddart, Maude Sherwood, Eleanor Hughes and Alfred Walsh. The foundation Watercolour Collection included two paintings of larger than usual dimensions. William Lee Hankey's We've been in the Meadows all day (1184 x 878mm) and Charles N. Worsley's Mount Sefton (996 x 1105mm) are still greater in scale than any other work in the Watercolour Collection.
