John Gully

Aotearoa New Zealand / British, b.1819, d.1888

Lake Wakatipu

  • 1877
  • Watercolour
  • Gift of Cyril and Jane Smith, 2014
  • 1300 x 1820mm
  • 2014/066
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In 1877, John Gully retired from his role as chief draughtsman in the Nelson Survey Office and took a month-long sketching tour of Wanaka, Milford Sound, Wakatipu and Manapouri. A year later, when he exhibited his new watercolours, he was commended by the Nelson Evening Mail for “two large watercolour paintings, the latest, and, to our mind, the best of the many that have been produced from the studio of that now celebrated artist... These represented Milford Sound and Lake Wakatipu… two nobler pictures it would be difficult to find.”

(Our Collection: 19th and 20th Century New Zealand Art, 2018)

Exhibition History

earlier labels about this work
  • John Gully, reaching retirement from his role as chief draughtsman in the Nelson Survey Office, took a month’s leave in 1877 for a sketching tour of Wanaka, Milford Sound, Wakatipu and Manapouri. Exhibiting his new watercolours in 1878, he was commended by the Nelson Evening Mail for “two large watercolour paintings, the latest, and, to our mind, the best of the many that have been produced from the studio of that now celebrated artist... These represented Milford Sound and Lake Wakatipu… two nobler pictures it would be difficult to find”. (2017)

    This major work was presented to the Gallery in memory of the prominent Christchurch businessman Cyril Smith (1915–2014) by his wife Jane.