This year, we asked for help to conserve the large golden frame that surrounds one of Ōtautahi Christchurch’s great treasures, and a firm favourite with our audiences. Commonly referred to as The Dutch Funeral, Petrus van der Velden’s 1875 wintry masterpiece Burial in the Winter on the Island of Marken has been enthralling gallery-goers since 1932 when Henry van Asch generously donated the work to the then newly opened Robert McDougall Art Gallery.

In 1986, a group of generous supporters raised funds to ensure that the painting itself was expertly cleaned of years of surface grime and restored for future generations to enjoy. However, at the time, funds were not available to restore the painting’s imposingly large and decorative gold frame, and the decision was made to spray paint the frame rather than investing in a full re-gilding.

The history of this painting is entwined with the Gallery’s history, and speaks to the generosity and vision of those before us, and our role now as kaitiaki. We have a responsibility to play our part, ensuring that the foresight and kindness of those before us is acknowledged, cared for, and preserved for the art lovers of tomorrow. We are deeply grateful for the past support that has brought us to this point. I’m happy to say that the generosity of our dinner guests will now be reflected in the brilliance of real gold leaf, applied skilfully and in the traditional way, by a highly trained conservator. There are many months of work ahead but in time this work will again be housed in the frame it deserves. It’s a beautiful way to play our part in the long life of this much-loved Christchurch Art Gallery taoka.

In another striking reflection of the generosity of the Foundation’s patrons, as I write, we are eagerly anticipating the enlivening of the space under our foyer stairs by Yona Lee’s wonderful Fountain in Transit. Lee’s sculptural work was commissioned by the Foundation last year, and for this issue of Bulletin she takes some time away from her Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland studio to talk with our lead curator Felicity Milburn about the work’s genesis and her studio practice. Elsewhere, in ‘Unfamilliars’ Felicity considers the strange and powerful works of two artists from our unmissable summer exhibition Dummies & Doppelgängers, James Barth and Tia Ranginui.

Upstairs in the collection galleries He Kapuka Oneone continues to beguile and challenge our visitors, exploring the connections between people and whenua through art. This Bulletin includes the second in a series of features in which our curators pick key works from this expansive and thought-provoking show for a deeper look. I’m also pleased that we’ve been able to include an interview with senior Kāi Tahu artist Ross Hemera, who talks with our pouarataki curator Māori Chloe Cull, about his upbringing, his early exposure to rock art and the development of his practice. Curator Peter Vangioni explores the connections between the linocut movement in 1920s England and Aotearoa New Zealand in an article that accompanies our new print-based exhibition, One O’Clock Jump: British Linocuts from the Jazz Age. Our pagework for this issue has been supplied by Ōtautahi artist Tamara Sikuri, and Gallery librarian Tim Jones introduces a brand-new exhibition space dedicated to our archive collections.