By EUGENE BINGHAM
For rent: art collection, worth up to $6 million. More than 130 paintings by some of the country's top artists, including Colin McCahon. Quick deal needed.
The collection was put together in 1991, when ECNZ set up the Rutherford Trust and gave it $500,000 to buy paintings.
The winding-up of the state-owned enterprise has left the collection with an uncertain future, and prompted members of Parliament to ask questions about what will become of it once the electricity company ceases to exist.
"We have got a slightly bizarre situation where, very soon, there will be no ECNZ, but there is about $6 million of art that is sort of publicly owned that nobody seems to have focused on," says the chairman of Parliament's commerce select committee, Titirangi MP David Cunliffe.
"It seems to me that attention urgently needs to be given to what to do with this valuable asset."
The "highly discriminating corporate art collection" features paintings by Geoff Thornley, Mark Braunias, Frances Hodgkins, Dame Louise Henderson, Colin McCahon, Milan Mrkusich and Gavin Chilcott, among others.
Under the trust deed, the collection is required to be displayed publicly.
It has travelled around the country, with parts of it at present on show at Wellington venues including Te Papa museum, Government House, the Prime Minister's official residence, Premier House, and at Wellington Airport.
But with the final breakup of ECNZ, expected later this year, changes have to be made.
A trustee, Geraldine Baumann, said the cost of maintaining the collection had been paid for through an arrangement with ECNZ, whereby the SOE rented some of the pictures for display at its headquarters in Wellington, Rutherford House.
"We desperately need a venue," she said. "The trustees have to find a means of renting the pictures."
Geraldine Baumann said the trust deeds ensured that the collection would remain on public display, so any company or organisation taking on the collection would have to make it available for viewing.
Under the arrangements with ECNZ, about 40 paintings were in Rutherford House at any one time, while the others were sent around the country.
Any venue would need to be secure and publicly accessible, with low lighting.
While the collection does not necessarily have to stay in the capital, Geraldine Baumann said, "I would find it desperately sad if we had to move it from Wellington."
Meanwhile, she and the other trustees, Sir Selwyn Cushing and Justice Judith Potter, are also having to change the process of appointing trustees, at present controlled by ECNZ.
Proposals under consideration include putting the process in the hands of various public bodies such as Te Papa and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage.
Wanted: good home for $6m works of art
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.