Roland Hipkins Renaissance 1932. Oil on Canvas. Collection of MTG Hawkes Bay, gift of the de Beer Family, 1952
This exhibition is now closed
Populated places and cityscapes converge with backyards, factories and remote railway stops in this fascinating survey of twentieth-century Aotearoa New Zealand artists exploring urban, suburban and industrial landscapes.
This exhibition is the first comprehensive investigation of this aspect of New Zealand art. In bringing together iconic paintings alongside less familiar works, it reveals a compelling history that has remained almost hidden in plain sight.
From Here on the Ground features works from Christchurch Art Gallery’s collection supplemented by loans from private and public lenders around the country, including paintings by leading New Zealand artists Rita Angus, Buster Black, Russell Clark, Ivy Fife, Rhona Haszard, Louise Henderson, Roland Hipkins, Doris Lusk, Christopher Perkins, Juliet Peter and Bill Sutton.
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Date:
18 May – 17 November 2024 -
Curator:
Ken Hall -
Exhibition number:
1146
Collection works in this exhibition
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From Here on the Ground labels
Read all the labels for the exhibition From Here on the Ground, 18 May – 17 November 2024
Commentary
Down and Gritty
The art history of Aotearoa New Zealand includes a subgenre of landscape painting that is often under recognised, but enlivens the story of this country in gritty, illuminating ways. Investigating the twentieth-century painters who focused on the urban and industrial exposes a rich seam of material, with subject-matter ranging from gasworks, hydroelectric plants and foundries to factories, warehouses and cityscapes, workshops, wharves and railway yards. The artists are a combination of well known and less familiar names, but it is notable that this direction developed most strongly among the Ōtautahi Christchurch-trained: two-thirds of the artists in From Here on the Ground attended the Canterbury College School of Art, where many also taught. It was a training ground regarded as among the most progressive in the Southern Hemisphere for several decades in the first half of the century.