Mapping the world

Curator Lauren Gutsell says the ‘‘World View’’ exhibition will take people on a journey around...
Curator Lauren Gutsell says the ‘‘World View’’ exhibition will take people on a journey around the world. Photo: Peter McIntosh
Madonna and Child Enthroned c.1481-1559, by Garofalo (Benvenuto Tisi). Photo: COLLECTION OF THE...
Madonna and Child Enthroned c.1481-1559, by Garofalo (Benvenuto Tisi). Photo: COLLECTION OF THE DUNEDIN PUBLIC ART GALLERYMAPPINGTHE WORLD
Maria, Countess Waldegrave 1764-65, by Joshua Reynolds. Photo: COLLECTION OF THE DUNEDIN PUBLIC...
Maria, Countess Waldegrave 1764-65, by Joshua Reynolds. Photo: COLLECTION OF THE DUNEDIN PUBLIC ART GALLERY

Want to travel overseas and see some of the great art of the world, but can’t? Don’t worry, the Dunedin Public Art Gallery has just the solution in its latest exhibition, discovers Rebecca Fox.

Works by some of the old masters of European art, modern Australian artists, prominent Japanese printmakers and well-known New Zealand artists in "World View" show just how global Dunedin’s public art collection is.

"World View: Mapping the Dunedin Public Art Gallery Collection" aims to take viewers on a journey through the gallery’s collection, "mapping" the geographical strengths it has from the Italian Renaissance and Edo-period Japan to 20th-century New Zealand art.

Works by Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and John Constable hang alongside those by Rita Angus, Ralph Hotere, Michael Parekowhai, Katsushika Hokusai and Utagawa Kunisada.

Curator Lauren Gutsell said the gallery had plotted the various geographic strengths of the collection since its beginnings in 1884.

"It’s an interesting way to talk about the ways different works have come into the collection through active purchasing, bequests, gifts, public subscription."

The works date from the 14th century to today.

"It’s a full span which is great."

Fellow curator Lucy Hammonds said the exhibition speaks to the gallery’s history,  from  the founding fathers who aimed to establish an international art collection in Dunedin that told the story of Western art history from the Renaissance to the contemporary.

"There was a desire to build a comprehensive reference collection that spoke to that history of art and also a collection of art being made in New Zealand at that time in the 1880s."

Gutsell said each section of the exhibition displays works that show the different characteristics of the geographic sites.

"They give snap shots of the history of New Zealand; British portraiture, European religious paintings, Australian modern art and contemporary New Zealand art.

"It’s a bit of a journey. There is the New Zealand section reflecting the gallery’s focus of collecting  New Zealand works from colonial to modern times.

"Different parts of the collection do different things and you’ll see that in the gallery.

"The New Zealand room’s collection shows a linear history whereas the other rooms feel like moments in time - the British room features work from 1898 to 1890 when the South Seas exhibition rallied a group of people in the community to raise funds to buy works, which came into the collection.

"We’ve also got the first work that came into the collection."

The gallery also has a "fine and quite focused" collection of Japanese wood block prints and some surrounding material, such as carving, as many private collectors had donated their collections to the gallery.

"It’s a very good collection, quite large so we are able to focus on it."

The Australian collection, while small, was of very good quality and reflected the gallery’s focus at one time on modern Australian work, she said.

Among the works on show will be some "old favourites" with gallery attendees, such as a 14th-century Machiavelli painting,  as well as some of the newer works that have come in to the collection, Hammonds said.

"It will give people a sense of the reach of the gallery, the impact of visiting artists ... that sense of the activity that surrounds looking after and building a collection.

"It was a challenge for the two curators to pull the works together as there were so many to choose from.

"The list started off much longer. It’s always hard, but that’s good."

They had the downstairs gallery repainted to give the exhibition an atmosphere and have featured works from each room in the entrance to provide a snapshot of what viewers are about to see.

 

The exhibition

"World View: Mapping the Dunedin Public Art Gallery Collection", opened on Saturday at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.

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