Bill Millbank at a 2018 exhibition of work by Philip Trusttum and Canterbury-based artist Jimmy Chang at his Bell St Gallery. Photo / NZME
Former Sarjeant Gallery director Bill Milbank died last month, leaving a legacy that will endure when the refurbished and extended gallery opens in 2024. Liz Wylie talked to some of those who knew him before and during his years of heartfelt dedication to art and artists.
Gorham Milbank recalls his brother Bill carving a wooden horse when they were growing up on a Raetihi farm.
“It was a rearing horse and it was very good, as I recall.
“I don’t know what happened to it but I remember it being around the house for a long time.”
The carving was the only early indication that his brother had an artistic bent.
“There wasn’t much time for such things, because we helped out on the farm,” he said.
“It was a sheep farm and I remember that we had a few cows for milking and quite a lot of chickens.”
Although Bill was two years older than his brother, they were in the same class at Mangaeturoa School where there was a sole charge teacher and no more than 12 pupils.
“Our teachers boarded with us and I enjoyed that because I wasn’t very good at throwing and catching balls and I remember a teacher who gave me extra coaching at home until I got quite good.
“Later, we attended Ruapehu College and had quite a long and arduous uphill journey there on our push bikes. The journey home was easier but we had to watch out for logging trucks.”
At high school Bill enjoyed art classes; however, Gorham recalls that he didn’t enjoy school in general.
“He was left-handed and those were the days when left-handed children were forced to do everything the right-handed way, so it wasn’t pleasant for Bill.
“He enjoyed the farm and was happy to stay there when I went off to teachers college.”
Fate would lead Bill Milbank in a different direction when his parents Bill and Hazel decided to sell the farm and move to Whanganui, where young Bill found work as a town planning draughtsman with the Wanganui City Council in 1966 and remained there until 1974.
Bill then headed overseas with his first wife Joanne, and spent a year travelling in Australia, south-east India, the UK and Europe. There, visits to art galleries inspired his future direction.
When he returned to Whanganui, Bill was employed as an exhibition technician at the Sarjeant Gallery working with director Gordon Brown. They ushered in a new era of changing exhibitions, replacing the previously static collection displays.
Bill was appointed acting director when Brown left in 1977 and became director a year later, remaining in the role until 2006. It was an age of enlightenment, with Māori artists coming to the fore at the gallery and Whanganui iwi gifting it the name Te Whare o Rehua (The House of Inspiration) in 1995.
The Sarjeant’s photographic collection grew under Bill’s watch and he encouraged Whanganui photographer Anne Noble and other contemporary artists in the field.
He also instigated the Tylee Cottage artist-in-residence programme in 1987.
Gorham’s teaching career led him to many different places, but visits home to Whanganui were always enjoyable, he recalls.
“It was always a pleasure to visit Bill at work and hear him talk about the exhibitions.
“I would look at an artwork and ask Bill, ‘What’s that about?’ and he would give these very enlightened explanations that made me appreciate it as well. He not only loved art - he really understood it.
“He talked about the way New Zealand artists worked with light. He said early Antipodean artists tended to depict the country with Northern Hemisphere light quality but as they came to appreciate the uniqueness of the light in this country, they depicted it in their work.”
The brothers did not see each other often, but Gorham said their shared childhood experiences and place of origin gave them commonalities.
“We both embraced te ao Māori in our work and I think that had a lot to do with where we came from. Growing up in Raetihi, we learned to appreciate that worldview.”
Bill was as caring towards artists as he was of their art, and formed lasting relationships with both established and emerging artists.
Whanganui artist Paul Rayner - who was employed as an officer, educator and curator during Bill’s tenure at the Sarjeant - said he always admired his boss’s dedication to the artists he worked with.
“He genuinely cared. Bill’s focus was always on advancing the artist’s career rather than his own,” he said.
“He achieved incredible things like touring exhibitions internationally from Whanganui.”
Bill’s frustration over the shortage of space at the Sarjeant led to the dream of a redevelopment project and a design by architects Warren & Mahoney.
When a council led by mayor Michael Laws - who was not supportive of the gallery extension - was elected in 2004, life became very unpleasant for the Sarjeant team and Bill’s tenure as director ended two years later.
Rayner said it was a difficult time to be working at the Sarjeant and he resigned a few months ahead of Bill’s departure.
“The redevelopment would have been done and dusted by now if not for that, but it was Bill’s vision that started it and that won’t be forgotten.”
Bill’s successor Greg Anderson - who was Sarjeant Gallery director until 2022 - recognised Bill’s progressive vision when the gallery’s centenary was celebrated in 2019.
“It was his foresight that led to the design for the redevelopment we’re working on achieving now. His quality relationships with so many significant New Zealand artists have built the collection into one of national significance,” he said.
Bill worked with hundreds of artists during his long tenure at the Sarjeant and subsequently at his own WHMilbank Gallery.
One of his most enduring friendships was with Christchurch-based artist Philip Trusttum and his wife, Lee.
Although Trusttum also hails from Raetihi, he left the district when he was young and didn’t really know Bill, who was eight years younger.
“Bill called me in the late 1970s and asked if I was interested in a touring exhibition.
“He became what I would call one of my litmus test people. I could always rely on Bill. As an artist, you need people who appraise your work honestly when you’re facing criticism. He would always respond quietly to things that were said so you sometimes thought he wasn’t listening. Then, two hours later, he’d tell you what he thought.”
Lee Trusttum agreed with her husband’s appraisal.
“Bill was incorruptible,” she said.
“He was always dead on the level.”
Philip Trusttum said he had enjoyed spending a few days in Whanganui with Bill and his wife Raewyne Johnson last year when the Sarjeant Gallery was showing Bill Milbank: Selected Works, which featured The Battle Plan for Genghis Khan.
Painter Gretchen Albrecht and her sculptor husband James Ross have also enjoyed a long association and friendship with Bill.
“He was totally involved with the art and artists he came in contact with - no ego, humble and warmly supportive. I have not met another in the New Zealand art world so dedicated or committed,” said Albrecht.
“Through the 1980s and early 1990s, Bill helped realise important contemporary New Zealand art exhibitions such as Seven Painters for the Eighties, which toured the country, and Distance Looks Our Way which travelled throughout the Netherlands and Spain.”
Ross said there were many artists, both from New Zealand and from overseas, who had benefitted enormously from Bill’s friendship and vision.
“Bill was a tireless director, and from the early days of his directorship was able to utilise his fairly limited gallery resources to great effect – always putting the artist first.”
Julie Catchpole, now director of Nelson’s Suter Gallery, recalls Bill being on the selection panel when she was appointed to the top role at the Manawatū Art Gallery (now Te Manawa) and appreciated him as a neighbouring director over the next decade.
“Bill and I also shared a fairly unusual indulgence,” she said.
“We both loved tripe and onions as well as lambs’ fry and bacon. If we were attending a conference or visiting the other’s town for any reason, Bill would draw me aside and say, ‘I know a place where we can get some’. I think we might have been the last of the offal eaters.”
Catchpole said she was always impressed by the broad school of New Zealand art that Bill carried with him.
“He had an incredible collection store inside his head - which is something every good director should have - but Bill’s ability to recall specific works was exceptional.”
Renowned potter and owner of Whanganui’s Quartz Museum of Studio Ceramics Rick Rudd said he first met Bill in the late 1970s when he was convenor for a pottery exhibition at the Sarjeant.
“I was new to Whanganui and convening the exhibition in a municipal gallery was a new experience, but Bill really put me at ease,” said Rudd.
“He had a way of imparting knowledge without actually teaching you. He simply led by example. Bill cemented the Sarjeant Gallery’s reputation and Whanganui as a destination for people interested in the arts. Although he was a quiet man, he knew how to make a point when he needed to and he was a great person to know.”
A memorial event to acknowledge Bill’s contribution to the local and national arts community is planned for next year.
Liz Wylie is a multimedia journalist for the Whanganui Chronicle. She joined the editorial team in 2014 and regularly covers stories from Whanganui and the wider region. She also writes features and profile stories.