Tuhinga 31, 2020
Topics include transfer lithography, an unfinished wharenui in Hawke’s Bay, modern Japanese prints, and exotic garlic snails.
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Contents
Roger Fry, Bloomsbury and transfer lithography
by Richard Howells
Wenceslaus Hollar’s Muscarum Scarabeorum, Vermiumque Varie Figure anatomised and identified
by Mark Stocker, Julia Kasper and Phil Sirvid
Te Whare o Heretaunga: A Journey of Rediscovery
by Rose Mohi and Amber Aranui
Type material of Clausiliidae door snails from Philippe Dautzenberg in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
by Rodrigo B. Salvador and Abraham S.H. Breure
Gordon Crook: tapestries
by Peter Stupples
A new vision: modern Japanese prints from the Heriot collection
by David Bell
Do herbarium specimens collected by Banks and Solander during Cook’s voyage around New Zealand in 1769–70 contain DNA?
by Lara D. Shepherd, Matt Buys, Carlos Lehnebach, Antony Kusabs and Leon Perrie
First records of the exotic garlic snail Oxychilus alliarius on Takapourewa and a reassessment of its distribution in New Zealand
by Rodrigo B. Salvador, Chris M.R. Birmingham, Linda A. Kilduff, Tansy Bliss and Chris J. Green
Roger Fry, Bloomsbury and transfer lithography
Richard Howells
This article investigates the adoption of transfer lithography as a printmaking process in the 1920s by Bloomsbury artist and critic Roger Fry (1866–1934), thereby filling a gap in the existing literature. It locates Fry’s use of the medium within the context of Bloomsbury innovation before the Second World War, placing more emphasis on technique than taste than is usually the case with scholarship on Bloomsbury. The article describes what was then an unusual and controversial process, which Fry used for his published lithographs, including his portfolio Ten Architectural Lithographs of 1930. It also considers the dispute surrounding the whole status of transfer lithography as a fine art form. Special attention is then paid to the 13 Fry lithographs in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa collection, donated by Rex Nan Kivell and Pamela Diamand, the artist’s daughter. The article then considers why these items by a very English artist were donated to a museum in New Zealand, especially by his only daughter in the UK. It concludes by considering the importance of these lithographs, arguing ultimately that they should be understood within the context of Roger Fry rather than simply by viewing the artist within the context of Bloomsbury.
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Wenceslaus Hollar’s Muscarum Scarabeorum, Vermiumque Varie Figure anatomised and identified
Mark Stocker, Julia Kasper and Phil Sirvid
This article examines a series of 12 etchings of invertebrates, Muscarum Scarabeorum … Varie Figure (1646), by the Bohemian artist Wenceslaus Hollar (1607–77). It locates Hollar in the historical and cultural context of this sub-genre and his likely source material. It then discusses the provenance of the series in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, which can be traced back to the political refugee and former prime minister of Denmark, Bishop Ditlev Monrad (1811–87). Hollar’s prints formed part of the foundation art collection of the Colonial Museum, Te Papa’s antecedent. The Appendix to this article attempts to identify each species or family of invertebrate depicted. In most instances, this exercise proved relatively straightforward because of the commonness of the species, but difficulties were occasionally posed by Hollar’s artistic licence and errors in detail. As a consequence, several prints in the series have been retitled to reflect taxonomic accuracy.
Te Whare o Heretaunga: A Journey of Rediscovery
Rose Mohi and Amber Aranui
In the 1860s, preparations for a large new wharenui (meeting house) named Heretaunga at Pākōwhai in Hawke’s Bay began under the authority of Ngäti Kahungunu rangatira (chief) and politician Karaitiana Takamoana (?–1879). Expert carvers from the Iwirākau School travelled down from Te Tairāwhiti (East Coast) to undertake the intricate carving. Unfortunately, Karaitiana died unexpectedly, which left the carvings and therefore the wharenui unfinished. Sometime after Karaitiana’s death, the carvings were obtained by the collector Thomas Morland Hocken (1838–1910), in a deal brokered by ethnologist Augustus Hamilton (1853–1913), who was desperate to obtain a carved whare (house) for the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition in Dunedin in 1889–90. They were eventually purchased by Hocken and donated to the Otago Museum. From the 1920s, more than 30 of Heretaunga’s carved poupou (wall panels) were exchanged or presented to museums throughout the world as well as here in Aotearoa New Zealand. At least four poupou from Te Whare o Heretaunga are part of the collection at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa), presented by Hamilton in 1904. This paper explores the journey to locate the Heretaunga poupou, the history around those located at Te Papa, and the claim by the Ngāti Kahungunu Waitangi Treaty settlement group He Toa Takitini to have all poupou belonging to this whare returned to ngā iwi o Heretaunga (the people of Heretaunga).
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Type material of Clausiliidae door snails from Philippe Dautzenberg in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
Rodrigo B. Salvador and Abraham S.H. Breure
A small collection of Vietnamese door snails (family Clausiliidae) was recently (re)discovered in the malacological collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (NMNZ). This material previously belonged to the famed shell collection of Belgian malacologist Philippe Dautzenberg (1849–1935) and was eventually acquired by, or donated to, NMNZ in the first half of the twentieth century. The collection comprises type material of 19 taxa (species and subspecies) and possible type material of one taxon, alongside non-type material of several additional species. It is presented here in the form of an annotated and illustrated catalogue.
Gordon Crook: tapestries
Peter Stupples
Gordon Crook (1921–2011) is a major New Zealand artist, well represented in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa collection. He came to New Zealand in 1972, aged 51, where he made for himself a new career, based upon new styles of artmaking, particularly tapestries, both large-scale wall hangings and more intimate pieces. He wove many of the small works himself, but also worked with New Zealand weavers, in particular Lesley Nicholls and Trish Armour. This is the first study to examine the range of Crook’s textile art made in New Zealand and his response to Pacific and Oceanic themes.
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A new vision: modern Japanese prints from the Heriot collection
David Bell
This is the third article addressing the 2016 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa) acquisition of a selection of Japanese artworks from the collection of Ian and Mary Heriot. Its scope embraces woodblock prints from the Meiji, Taishö and Shöwa periods (1868–1912, 1912–26, and 1926–89, respectively). These include compositions relatively unfamiliar in New Zealand; most earlier collectors had been preoccupied with the ukiyo-e ‘floating world pictures’ of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.[1] The works are significant, however, for appreciating the twentieth-century revitalisation of the medium, its sustained popularity in Japan and its appeal for collectors in the West. The appeal of these later works to the Heriots reflects their depth of knowledge in the field, and the enquiring minds they brought to their interest in Japanese pictorial arts. Ian Heriot acknowledges the enjoyment of ‘relatively modern Japanese art’ that distinguishes his collection from others, and the dispositions of curiosity and taste for the unusual that have informed this.[2] He became very knowledgeable in the field, joining an international shin-hanga (‘new print’) interest group to cultivate his knowledge in the field and better understand the works he acquired. The innovative engagements of the later artists, and the new visions and stylistic tropes they brought to conventional print subjects of kabuki actors, historical themes, natural history or landscape, sustained the pleasures and the cognitive engagements afforded by earlier works. For viewers today, they complement ukiyo-e collections and inform a comprehensive picture of the historical development of the Japanese woodblock print and shifts in the aesthetic and historical interests that shape the habits of collectors.
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1. Geraldine Lummis, ‘Ukiyo-e and the Canterbury Museum’, in: Richard Bullen (ed.), Pleasure and play in Edo Japan, Christchurch: Canterbury Museum, University of Canterbury, 2009, pp. 16–23.
2. Ian Heriot, interview with Mark Stocker, Katikati, 11 June 2016.
Do herbarium specimens collected by Banks and Solander during Cook’s voyage around New Zealand in 1769–70 contain DNA?
Lara D. Shepherd, Matt Buys, Carlos Lehnebach, Antony Kusabs and Leon Perrie
The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa) holds a large number of pre-1900 herbarium specimens, including more than 500 collected by the botanists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander during Captain James Cook’s first voyage to New Zealand in 1769–70. Recent advances in genetic technologies have shown that DNA can be obtained from old herbarium specimens. However, our attempts to do so from pre-1900 specimens at Te Papa have had mixed results. Here, we test whether DNA is still present in seven well-preserved Banks and Solander herbarium specimens from six families. We were able to successfully retrieve a DNA sequence from only one specimen, native pellitory (Parietaria debilis, Urticaceae). Therefore, we recommend caution in approving requests to genetically sample Banks and Solander herbarium specimens.
First records of the exotic garlic snail Oxychilus alliarius on Takapourewa and a reassessment of its distribution in New Zealand
Rodrigo B. Salvador, Chris M.R. Birmingham, Linda A. Kilduff, Tansy Bliss and Chris J. Green
We present the first report of an exotic snail from Takapourewa (also known as Stephens Island), New Zealand: Oxychilus alliarius (J.S. Miller, 1822), the garlic snail (Stylommatophora: Oxychilidae). This species has been introduced worldwide; it is widespread in New Zealand, where it is potentially problematic to the native fauna. We also revise the species’ distribution in New Zealand based on historical material deposited in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.