The Dunedin Public Art Gallery holds the main public art collection of the city of Dunedin, New Zealand. Located in The Octagon in the heart of the city, it is close to the city's public library, Dunedin Town Hall, and other facilities such as the Regent Theatre.
The gallery was founded by W. M. Hodgkins in 1884 and was the first public art gallery in New Zealand. It originally occupied what is now the maritime gallery in the Otago Museum, was re-located to the Municipal Chambers in the Octagon from 1888–90, and then to an annex to the Otago Museum. It moved to a new purpose-designed building in Queen's Gardens in 1907, to which a structure housing the Otago Settlers Museum was added the following year. In 1927 it was moved to a building constructed for the 1925–26 New Zealand and South Seas International Exhibition in Logan Park, Dunedin North designed by Edmund Anscombe. [1] The building was bought and donated to the city by Sir Percy and Lady Sargood, as a memorial to their son who was killed at Gallipoli. [2] The gallery was relocated to its present site, the refitted D.I.C. building, in 1996.
In its long existence the gallery has played host to numerous overseas exhibitions, including Masterpieces of the Guggenheim a 1990s modern art show, and the touring Tate Gallery exhibition The Pre-Raphaelite Dream, more recently.
The gallery has a strong collection of historic and contemporary works, by New Zealand and overseas artists. It has one of the most numerous collections of works by Frances Hodgkins, who was born in the city. It has the most extensive collection of Old Master paintings in New Zealand and the most significant holdings of paintings by post-1800 overseas artists.[ citation needed ]
The collections include works by Jacopo del Casentino (also known as Landini), Zanobi Machiavelli, Benvenuto Tisi (called Garofalo), Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, Carlo Maratta, Luca Giordano, Salvator Rosa, Claude Lorraine, Hans Rottenhammer, Pieter de Grebber, Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, William Dobson, Cornelis Janssens van Ceulen (Cornelius Johnson), Jan van Goyen, Allan Ramsay, Thomas Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds, George Romney, Henry Raeburn, John Hoppner and William Turner; John Constable, Théodore Rousseau, Giovanni Fattori, Silvestro Lega, James Tissot, Johan Jongkind, Claude Monet, Edward Burne-Jones, George Frederic Watts, Sir Stanley Spencer, Walter Sickert, Laurence Lowry and André Derain.
The gallery's British watercolours, the gift of F.H.D. Smythe, include over 1300 works and the group is outstanding in New Zealand. The gallery has significant holdings of overseas Old Master and modern prints and drawings, including a notable collection of Japanese woodblock prints. Its New Zealand holdings are distinguished by such works as George O'Brien's Lawyer's Head from Forbury Head, Sunrise, Petrus Van der Velden's A Waterfall in the Otira Gorge, G.P. Nerli's Portrait of a Girl, C.F. Goldie's All 'e Same t'e Pakeha, Alfred Henry O'Keeffe's The Defence Minister's Telegram, Rita Angus's 1937 Self-Portrait, Colin McCahon's The 5 Wounds of Christ and Ralph Hotere's Rosemary.
Unlike New Zealand's other major public galleries the Dunedin Public Art Gallery branched out into the decorative arts in the 1920s, developing on the model of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, or the American 'Art Museums'. It thus has extensive and, in New Zealand, unparalleled holdings of ceramics, glassware, metalwork, furniture and textiles, mostly of overseas origin. The William De Morgan Dragon Charger is an example.
The gallery is open daily (except public holidays) from 10am to 5pm. Its current director is Cam McCracken.
1958 - 1964 Annette Pearse
1965 - 1971 Charlton Edgar
1971 - 1980 Les Lloyd
1980 – 1989 Frank Dickerson
1990 – 1993 Cheryll Sotheran
1994 - 1997 John McCormack [3]
1998 - 2007 Pricilla Pitts
2008 - 2012 Helen Caldwell [4]
2012 - Cam McCracken [5]
Dunedin is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from Dùn Èideann, the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. The city has a rich Māori, Scottish, and Chinese heritage.
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki is the principal public gallery in Auckland, New Zealand. It has the most extensive collection of national and international art in New Zealand and frequently hosts travelling international exhibitions.
Frances Mary Hodgkins was a New Zealand painter chiefly of landscape and still life, and for a short period was a designer of textiles. She was born and raised in New Zealand, but spent most of her working life in England. She is considered one of New Zealand's most prestigious and influential painters, although it is the work from her life in Europe, rather than her home country, on which her reputation rests.
William Mathew Hodgkins was a 19th-century New Zealand painter.
George O'Brien (1821–1888) was an engineer of aristocratic background who turned to art in 19th century Australasia, dying in poverty but leaving a body of remarkable work.
Girolamo Pieri Pecci Ballati Nerli, was an Italian-born painter who worked in Australia and New Zealand in the late 19th century, influencing the art scenes of both countries. In Australia, he is noted for influencing Charles Conder of the Heidelberg School movement, and in New Zealand, as an early teacher of Frances Hodgkins. His portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery is usually considered the most searching portrayal of the writer.
Alfred Henry O'Keeffe, was a New Zealand artist and art teacher, who spent the majority of his life in Dunedin. During the first quarter of the twentieth century, he was one of the few New Zealand artists to engage with new ideas while staying in New Zealand. At this time most adventurous New Zealand painters, such as Frances Hodgkins, went overseas. He has sometimes been described as a Vasari - a recorder of artists and their doings - based upon his published recollections, which are the only first hand published account of that milieu.
Jeffrey Harris is a New Zealand artist. Harris started his career in Christchurch, moving to Dunedin, New Zealand in 1969. In the early 1980s he worked briefly in the United States, before moving to Melbourne, Australia in 1986. In 2000 he returned to Dunedin, where he still lives. Largely self-taught, but mentored by notable New Zealand artists such as Michael Smither and Ralph Hotere, he has painted full-time since 1970.
Peter Malcolm William Entwisle was a New Zealand art historian and writer, notably on the history of Dunedin and of New Zealand art.
Rodney Eric Kennedy was a New Zealand artist, art critic, pacifist and drama tutor. He was born in Dunedin.
Fiona Dorothy Pardington is a New Zealand artist, her principal medium being photography.
Saskia Leek is a New Zealand painter.
Kathleen Lucy Salmond was a New Zealand artist, born in Dunedin.
Marilynn Lois Webb was a New Zealand artist, noted for her contributions to Māori art and her work as an educator. She was best known for her work in printmaking and pastels, and her works are held in art collections in New Zealand, the United States, and Norway. She lectured at the Dunedin School of Art, and was made an emeritus principal lecturer in 2004.
Nicola Jackson is a New Zealand artist, born in Dunedin.
Heather Straka is a New Zealand artist, based in Auckland, who primarily works with the media of painting and photography. Straka is well known as a painter that utilises a lot of detail. She often depicts cultures that are not her own, which has caused controversy at times. Her work engages with themes of economic and social upheaval in interwar China, the role of women in Arabic society and Māori in relation to colonisation in New Zealand. Eventually, the figure became important in Straka's practice and she began to use photographs as the starting point for some of her works and "Increasingly too the body feminine has become her milieu".
Kushana Bush is a New Zealand artist based in Dunedin. She is best known for her paintings which typically blend historic and contemporary styles. Bush has won several awards for her works and has held international exhibitions.
Joanna Langford is a New Zealand artist, born in Gisborne, New Zealand.
Denis O'Connor is a New Zealand-based ceramicist, sculptor, and writer who has exhibited both in New Zealand and internationally.
Louise Menzies is a New Zealand artist based in Auckland. Her works are held in the Auckland Art Gallery collection.
45°52′28″S170°30′10″E / 45.87451°S 170.50281°E
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