Taupō businessman Chris Johnston inspects the restored work of Barry Brickell that has now been installed at the new Taupō Airport Terminal. Photo / Andy Taylor
The efforts of a Taupō businessman has seen a huge sculpture by a famous New Zealand potter saved from the scrap yard.
Barry Brickell’s A Study in Volcanology is one of 11 large pottery works he produced in his lifetime.
Commissioned by the Taupō Post Office in 1985, the imposing work stands 3.6 metres tall and is split into two panels which sat either side of the entrance to the building on the corner of Horomatangi and Ruapehu streets.
When the Post Office was privatised and the Taupō branch moved up the road, the panels were removed and installed on either side of a car park entrance. Then, in 2014 the owner of the building advised Town Centre Taupō that the carpark was going to be developed.
Town centre business owner and committee member Chris Johnston has a deep interest in the arts and was aware of the significance of the Brickell artwork. It features 54 handcrafted terracotta tiles which collectively create a depiction of Lake Taupō, its surrounds and what lies beneath. It was based on Brickell’s own theory of volcanology.
He said the developer was to let them know when demolition was planned so the artwork could be saved.
However, about a year later, in March 2015, Johnston got a call to say bulldozers were on the site and work was about to get underway.
“This was news to me so I rushed to the site and inquired about the panels and what was planned. I was told that there had been a $4000 contingency applied to taking the panels to a storage area but the owner took that out and they were to go to the landfill with the other parts of the carpark.
“I asked if I paid the $4000 could they be saved, which was accepted.”
For a few thousand dollars, Chris was now the owner of a work of art potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
However, he wanted the works saved and restored. The tiles that make up the artwork were stuck fast to large concrete panels and needed significant work to remove and repair.
The Taupō District Council reimbursed him for the purchase and the panels then sat in the council depot until money was allocated in 2019 to have the necessary work done.
Chris met with Barry Brickell in 2015 and was told the panels were always designed to be shown side-by-side.
“He also gave us a book he had written featuring the 11 large works or murals produced over 38 years, which showcases the Taupō work and [he] was incredibly appreciative of them being saved. They are a major part of his portfolio and an incredible part of New Zealand’s art history and need to be preserved.”
Brickell died on January 23, 2016 at the age of 80.
A few years later, in June 2020, Chris visited Liz Yaw from Artefacts Conservation Limited, who had been tasked with removing the 54 terracotta tiles from the heavy concrete slab they had been glued to.
It was a complicated project, with many of the tiles breaking and needing to be repaired.
However, the finished work now takes up a prominent place in the new Taupō Airport, where visitors and local alike can view it as one piece like it was always meant to be, once the new building is officially opened in the next week or two.
Motorists are being warned to expect hazardous driving conditions.