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    HomeCollectionDeposition
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    Bernard Rice

    Austria / British, b.1900, d.1998

    Deposition

    • 1927
    • Wood engraving
    • Presented by Rex Nan Kivell, 1953
    • 288 x 390mm
    • 94/176

    Tags: Christianity, monochrome, mourning, people (agents), religious art, rings (jewelry)

    View all works that depict Jesus Christ

    View all works that depict Virgin Mary

    Save to My Gallery

    Exhibition History

    Image: uploads/2019_10/CAG_Exh_986_0005.jpg
    The Golden Age
    Sybil Andrews The Giant Cable (Detail) 1931. Collection of the Gallery
    Graphica Britannica

    Related reading: The Golden Age

    Notes
    Austen Deans at war

    Austen Deans at war

    While the recently deceased painter Austen Deans is best known for his paintings of the Canterbury High Country, he also produced an important body of work while serving with the New Zealand Army during World War II. In particularly his paintings of life as a prisoner of war in Germany provides a rare glimpse into the life of Allied POWs.

    Notes
    Five eyes by Eric Ravilious

    Five eyes by Eric Ravilious

    This article first appeared as 'Artist captured poetry in wood carving' in The Press on 11 November 2014.

    Notes
    Lorton, Cumberland by Tom Chadwick

    Lorton, Cumberland by Tom Chadwick

    This article first appeared as 'Wood engraving artist finally won recognition' in The Press on 27 June 2014.

    Notes
    Death and the woodcutter by Leo Bensemann

    Death and the woodcutter by Leo Bensemann

    This article first appeared as 'Death mastered' in The Press on 28 March 2013.

    Notes
    Ruth Lowinsky by Eric Gill

    Ruth Lowinsky by Eric Gill

    This article first appeared as 'An oblique profile' in The Press on 12 July 2013.

    Notes
    The Print Collection

    The Print Collection

    If the question "what is the largest individual collection area numerically held by the Gallery?" was to be asked, the answer would have to be the Works on Paper collection, within which are 2145 original contemporary and historical prints, the earliest dating from the second half of the fifteenth century.

    Notes
    St Brendan and the Sea Monsters by Robert Gibbings

    St Brendan and the Sea Monsters by Robert Gibbings

    This article first appeared in The Press on 14 December 2005

    At just 14 cm tall, the exquisite St Brendan and the Sea Monsters by Irish-born Robert Gibbings (1889-1958) is one of the smallest works in Christchurch Art Gallery's collection, but carries with it some of the largest tales. A rhythmic composition of swirling sea serpents, stingrays and sharks, this finely-crafted woodcut print tells the story of 6th century Irish explorer-monk St. Brendan, or Brendan the Navigator, whose recorded travels were an important part of medieval European folklore, and which continue to fascinate.

    Article
    Tomorrow, Book, Caxton Press, Landfall

    Tomorrow, Book, Caxton Press, Landfall

    In the decades before and after the Second World War, Christchurch experienced a remarkable artistic efflorescence that encompassed the visual arts, literature, music, theatre and the publishing of books and journals. And the phenomenon was noticed beyond these islands. For instance, in his 1955 autobiography, English publisher and editor of Penguin New Writing and London Magazine, John Lehmann, wrote (with a measure of exaggeration, perhaps) that of all the world’s cities only Christchurch at that time acted ‘as a focus of creative literature of more than local significance’.

    Continued

    Collection
    The Magical Wooden Head

    E. Mervyn Taylor The Magical Wooden Head

    New Zealand’s most respected wood engraver, E. Mervyn Taylor remains renowned for his delicately engraved and beautifully designed prints. He was drawn to Māori mythology for much of his subject matter, in particular George Grey’s collected legends published as Polynesian Mythology in 1855.

    In this work he depicts the myth of the Ma- ori sorcerer Hakawau defeating a carved magical wooden head whose stare will cause death to anyone who looks at it. As with his contemporary British artists, Taylor’s wood engravings were also used for illustrative purposes, and in 1946 he produced a limited edition book of his wood engravings through Christchurch’s Caxton Press – which can be seen elsewhere in the exhibition.

    The Golden Age 18 December 2015 – 1 May 2016

    'A book of wood engravings' by E Mervyn Taylor is in the Robert and Barbara Stewart Library and Archives and can be viewed by appointment

    Collection
    Skaters

    Eileen Mayo Skaters

    Two prints from early in Eileen Mayo’s career show the strength of her natural ability. Eileen was nineteen and studying at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London, when she made the wood engraving Skaters. She made Turkish Bath a few years later in response to an invitation to put work in the Second Exhibition of British Lino-Cuts at the Redfern Gallery, London. Her invitation came from Claude Flight, the linocut’s principal champion, who reportedly instructed her on the technique over the telephone. She had met Flight, a teacher at the Grosvenor School of Art, while working there in 1929 as a life-class model.

    (Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- )

    Collection
    Promenade

    Paul Nash Promenade

    Paul Nash was a member of England’s Society of Wood Engravers in the 1920s, and this work, one of his earliest wood engravings, highlights his instinctive approach to the medium. Rather than be tied down by traditional wood-engraving practices of precision and accuracy of line, his mark-making is free and immediate. A jagged, hard-edged perspective intensifies the scene. The waves breaking on the seawall form a series of varied, simplified patterns and shapes. The elongated figures, dwarfed by the wall, intensify the scale of the structure. Nash’s rough and intuitive techniques in cutting the end-grain wood serve to intensify the image and highlight an artist approaching a medium with much tradition under his own terms.

    The Golden Age 18 December 2015 – 1 May 2016

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