Dunedin Public Art Gallery
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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, municipal chambers, and other facilities such as the Regent Theatre.
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[edit] History
The gallery was founded by W.M. Hodgkins in 1884 and was the first public art gallery in New Zealand. It first occupied what is now the maritime gallery in the Otago Museum was in the Municipal Chambers in the Octagon from 1888-1890, then in an annexe to the Otago Museum where the Fels Wing is now. It moved to a new purpose-designed building in Queens Gardens in 1907 to which a structure housing the Otago Settlers Museum was added the following year, the whole designed by John Burnside. In 1927 it was moved to a building constructed for the 1925-6 New Zealand and South Seas International Exhibition in Logan Park, Dunedin North designed by Edmund Anscombe. It was relocated to its present site, the refitted D.I.C. building, in 1996.
Since then the gallery has played host to several important overseas shows, notably the Masterpieces of the Guggenheim exhibition of modern art, and the touring Tate Gallery exhibition The Pre-Raphaelite Dream.
[edit] Collection
The gallery has a strong collection of old, modern 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 too. These include works by Jacopo del Casentino (also known as Landini), Zanobi Machiavelli, Carlo Maratta, Salvator Rosa, Claude Lorraine, Thomas Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds, George Romney, Henry Raeburn and William Turner; John Constable, Claude Monet, Edward Burne-Jones, Walter Sickert and Andre Derain.
The gallery's holdings of British watercolours, the gift of F.H.D. Smythe, contains over 1300 works and is outstanding in New Zealand. It has significant holdings of overseas old master and modern prints and drawings, including a notable group of Japanese woodblock prints. Its New Zealand holdings are distinguished by such notable 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 te Pakeha', Alfred Henry O'Keeffe's 'The Defense 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 gallery is open daily (except public holidays) from 10am to 5pm.
[edit] References
- Entwisle, Peter (October 1984). William Mathew Hodgkins & his Circle: an exhibition to mark the centennial of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Dunedin, NZ: Dunedin Public Art Gallery. ISBN 0-473-00263-9.
- Entwisle, Peter (1990). Treasures of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Dunedin, NZ: Dunedin Public Art Gallery. ISBN 0-9597758-9-7.
