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For almost 50 years, following his emigration from Britain to New Zealand in 1904, Frederick George Gurnsey was a leading figure in local wood and stone carving.

He taught at the Canterbury College School of Art until 1923 and later worked as a freelance carver on prestigious commissions throughout New Zealand. Among his best known works are the reredos and the Chapel of St. Michael and St. George in the Christchurch Anglican Cathedral and the stone carvings on the Bridge of Remembrance.

Angels and Roses presents Gurnsey's work to the Christchurch community and celebrates his very significant contribution to the artistic impact of many local buildings. The 50 works gathered for the exhibition are choice examples of his work. Included are dressers, chairs, altars, pulpits and a fine 1929 reredos. Through these works from his large oeuvre we will be able to witness Gurnsey's skill and versatility in a wide range of carvings both charming and witty. Above all though is the technical excellence of his ornamental carving which, despite the ambiguous status on the boundary of art and craft, lifts this artist's work into a special category.

The title for this exhibition arises from the angel forms featured on many of the ecclesiastical pieces and the carved Tudor rose which Gurnsey used as an affectionate tribute to his wife Rose Ellen. Gurnsey was too modest to sign his works so instead is often identified by his angel and rose monogram. Yet no two of his hundreds of angels, cherubim and putti are ever the same, and his thousands of roses vary from naturalistic flowers to emblematic Tudor blooms.

Angels and Roses will help break down the often negative and elitist barriers between art and craft and between sculpture and carving which have tended to obscure Gurnsey's remarkable achievement. His versatility also provides a fascinating insight into artistic styles: from the art nouveau of the country church font cover to the seventeenth-century 'Wrenaissance' style of the Bishopscourt font and chair; from the Elizabethan revivalism of his flagons to the distinctively New Zealand imagery on the North Otago pews.

Angels and Roses is a collaboration between Mark Stocker, Senior Lecturer in Art History at the University of Canterbury, and Anna Crighton, Registrar at the McDougall Art Gallery, who did the preliminary research on Gurnsey as a post graduate student at the University of Canterbury several years ago. Works have been generously lent from private owners and institutions throughout New Zealand. On Sunday 14 September, at 11.00am, Mark Stocker will give a floortalk on Angels and Roses.

Listen to an interview with Mark Stocker and Anna Crighton