Enthusiast fears for artist's replica studio

Kevin McIntyre, Lindauer Replica Studio secretary Sue McLeod and Tararua District mayor Tracey Collis with a replica of a Gottfried Lindauer painting. The original is on permanent loan to the studio.

Kevin McIntyre's passion for the paintings of Gottfried Lindauer began in 1975 and he's put the town on the map, thanks to his hard work.

Committed to keeping his town, Woodville's, links with the work of the Bohemian artist, Mr McIntyre is trying to keep the Lindauer Replica Studio on Woodville's Vogel St open.

Last year the Tararua District Council announced it intended to refurbish its old engineering services building to house the iSite and library, as the current iSite, Woodville Library and Lindauer Studio were a major earthquake risk requiring an estimated $850,000 to enlarge and totally refurbish.

With the building work on the new site near completion and the move looming for the iSite and library, Mr McIntyre and his committee are concerned about the Lindauer Replica Studio.

Will it be left isolated and with a staffing conundrum?

"I wish I knew," Mr McIntyre told the Dannevirke News.

"When the library moves the power will be turned off . . . "

Mr McIntyre said there was talk of the Tararua District Council, owners of the building, offering it back to the community.

"But, if it's earthquake-prone why should our community raise the money to bring it up to code?" Mr McIntyre said.

"Getting the council to quake-strengthen it could be just a dream, but this is the only building the old borough council built in Woodville and we'd like to see it stay."

Asked by the council to put forward a business plan, Mr McIntyre said his group "don't know where to start".

"I would like to see a business in the old library, with our studio remaining attached," he said.

"The only requirement is for the occupier of the building to be the doorkeepers to the Lindauer Replica Studio."

However, Mr McIntyre acknowledged that while the studio didn't need to be central to everything his committee did to keep the Lindauer name at the forefront of Woodville, it could be an embarrassment to the district council if it closed.

"I don't know if we can muster up the time, energy or expertise for a business plan.

"If worst comes to worst, we can run our annual exhibition and host our Czech Republic artist-in-residence programme without the studio."

Mr McIntyre has chased more than 200 Lindauer paintings, building trust and rapport with the owners of the valuable works of art, much of which he has reproduced for the studio.

"It's a very secretive and clandestine world,'' he said.

"When a signed, known Maori chief painting can be worth $100,000, it's easy to understand why.

"And that's just the price when Te Papa isn't bidding.''

But even the least valuable of Lindauer's works, his paintings of European subjects, can fetch $20,000.

Now, Mr McIntyre has been entrusted with the long-term loan of a Lindauer work by an owner who lives in Australia.

"He visited Woodville and the studio and decided, after eight or nine months, this was somewhere he could leave the work on permanent loan," he said.

And while the original is in storage with security and climate control, a copy was on display on the opening night of the Lindauer Art Exhibition last Tuesday.

"It's a real feather in our cap," Mr McIntyre said.

Lindauer painted Elizabeth Prattley - Aunt Nin - in 1909.

She had arrived in New Zealand from Gloucestershire with her mother and later married Charles Hambling, and her descendants have given the painting to Woodville's Lindauer Replica Studio.

* The Lindauer Art Exhibition continues today and tomorrowat the Woodville Racecourse.