Three weeks in New Zealand - 4/12 - 5/4/2024

Day 10-Museum of Zealand cont., Wellington-4/20/2024

More exhibits

The map shows forest cover today, after the intense forest clearance undertaken by Pakeha (European) settlers of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Today 25% of indigenous forest remains, with nearly all lowland areas cleared for agriculture.

This what New Zealand used to looked like. 85% of the land was covered in forest before people came. By the beginning of the 20th century, various people were becoming concerned about the sweeping changes that had taken place in New Zealand.

 Farmers like Herbert Guthrie-Smith were troubled by the way land had been cleared and cultivated.  He witnessed first hand the problems this caused for the country side and its original plant and animals.  Scientists began to take stock of the extinction of several species.  They wondered whether these irrevocable losses were necessary in achieving human goals and needs.  Could they have been prevented?

We are now in the art gallerie.

The portrait wall in Toi Art, the art gallery within New Zealand’s national museum, Te Papa, is the most popular art exhibition for museum visitors.

Hung salon-style on dark red walls, its 36 arresting portraits span historical portraiture to contemporary practice, and represent mana. Some trumpet the status of European royalty, Māori leaders, or prosperous colonial settlers in New Zealand. Others advertise the skills of the artist. All carry stories from the past into the present..

This area is dedicated to the Natural and landscape

Kororareka in the Bay opf Islands, 1841.  Oil on canvas by Conrad Martens (1801-1878)

Cook Strait, New Zealand about 1884

Early Spring or a narrow of the Waikato River 1881

Portrait of Mrs. Paremena.

Raita Tuterangi commissioned this portrait from artist Gottfried Lindauer in 1885, together with her husband, Paramena Te Naonao. The pair travelled to Hastings, where Lindauer was temporarily based, and sat for their photographs, the basis for these paintings. For an unknown reason, the couple never collected their portraits, and they passed into Pākehā ownership. The paintings were found in pristine condition in 1995, under a bed in Blenheim.

Maori girl.

Commissioned portraits gave Māori control over how they were represented. This portrait was probably painted for this unidentified girl or her whānau [family]. Gottfried Lindauer’s portraits of Māori painted for Pākehā usually feature customary adornment and clothing. But this elegant young woman wears beautifully tailored European clothing.  Her own choice of personal expression.

Lindauer painted many portraits for Māori clients from the mid 1870s. For his sitters, portraiture was another way of representing themselves, in addition to whakairo [carving] and other art forms.

Dr. Featherston and the Maori Chiefs, Wi Tako and Te Puni by William Beetham 1857-58, Wellington.

William Beetham’s life-sized group portrait depicts Isaac Featherston, superintendent of the Wellington province, in the company of Te Āti Awa rangatira, or chiefs, Honiana Te Puni and Wī Tako Ngātata. Beetham places Featherston centre stage, with one hand resting on a decidedly messy desk. Behind the chair stand the bearded Te Puni and his younger relative, Wī Tako.

Karl Fritsch’s installation titled Kelp (2023) at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington. This artwork was part of the This Natural World exhibition, which ran from September 23, 2023, to May 19, 2024.

Kelp (2023) is a large-scale installation featuring substantial pieces of kelp suspended from the ceiling to the floor, illuminated by a spectrum of neon lights. The immersive display engages multiple senses, including the distinct scent of dried seaweed, offering a profound connection to New Zealand's marine environment. This piece exemplifies how artists utilize natural materials to explore and express the rhythms and forms of the natural world.

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