On a recent visit to Whanganui, I walked the last kilometre of the city’s grand thoroughfare, Victoria Ave, before it meets the river. As I wandered, a transformation was evident. Gradually the op shops and kebab stands gave way to banks and fine dining. The buildings, most of the same century-old vintage, slowly graduated from tired and peeling to tidy and impressive.
Nowhere was the shift more pronounced than at Majestic Square, where a turn to the right leads to the botanic and athletic amusements of Cooks Gardens, and a turn to the left reveals the elaborate stairway that rises up Pukenamu Queen’s Park, leading to a white stone temple on top of the hill. Long covered in scaffolding, it now gleams in full Edwardian splendour.
That building, Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery, has undergone a $74 million transformation over the past five years. On Saturday, November 9, it will open its doors for the first time in almost a decade. Visitors will experience the century-old, domed building in pristine condition, along with a spacious new wing, clad in black granite, that will double exhibition space and provide ideal conditions to preserve the collection.
But Whanganui’s art lovers have even greater expectations for the rejuvenated Sarjeant. They hope it will propel their town into must-see status for local and overseas visitors.
Heritage kept
Whanganui was one of the commercial centres of 19th-century New Zealand, a port for colonial settlements along Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River). Its economic significance declined in the 20th century, as its near neighbour Palmerston North became the area’s transport hub and the discovery of oil buoyed New Plymouth. More positively, this meant Whanganui avoided the fate of other centres: many of its handsome, century-old buildings still stand, supplemented by smart additions like the 1933 Art Deco Alexander Library and the 1960 Modernist masterpiece War Memorial Centre. No wonder that in 2021, Whanganui was named Aotearoa’s only Unesco City of Design.
The Sarjeant Gallery has long been considered the jewel in the city’s architectural crown. When its benefactor, farmer and real estate investor Henry Sarjeant died in 1912, he left £30,000 for the creation of an art gallery and an acquisition fund. Dunedin architect Edmund Anscombe received the commission and although Anscombe insisted on credit, a younger employee, Donald Hosie, was mostly responsible for the design.
Inspired by the neoclassical elements of the then-popular Beaux-Arts style, Hosie proposed a Greek cross fashioned from Oamaru stone, with a superb domed centre. Sunlight would filter in from cleverly designed openings in the ceiling. Sadly, Hosie did not live to see his finished masterpiece. The 22-year-old was killed in action at Passchendaele in October 1917. Two years later, in September 1919, the Sarjeant opened to the public.
Building a collection
Henry Sarjeant and his wife Ellen had been active travellers and occasional collectors, but the real collecting began after Henry’s death. In 1913, Ellen – who was nearly four decades younger than Sarjeant – married John Armstrong Neame, a teacher at Whanganui Collegiate School, and the couple occasionally acquired art for the new gallery during overseas travels. One of their purchases, a 1914 marble copy of an ancient Greek (and long lost) bronze, The Wrestlers, took pride of place under the Sarjeant’s central dome. It was a popular work at the time – the Dunedin Public Art Gallery has a slightly later copy.
An important early gift came from William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme (of Sunlight Soap fame), who appreciated the architectural similarities between the Sarjeant and the Liverpool building he created in memory of his wife, the Lady Lever Art Gallery. His donations included two significant, if unfinished, paintings by Edward Burne-Jones, as well as Eugene von Blaas’s 1891 Curiosity, a charming image of two women on a ladder, peeking over a high brick wall. During the gallery’s redevelopment, von Blaas’s painting symbolised the anticipation for the reopening.
Gifts and acquisitions continued throughout the 20th century. Gallery director Andrew Clifford points out, “everything in the collection has come out of giving rather than out of public money.” The gallery now holds a nationally renowned photography collection and a remarkable archive of works by local artist Edith Collier. A beautiful new book on Collier’s works by Massey University Press has been published ahead of the reopening, making a persuasive case for her national and even (given her striking paintings of Ireland) international importance.
Dome disrupted
In 1979, pop artist Billy Apple, as part of his The Given as an Art-Political Statement exhibition, controversially removed The Wrestlers from the eminent position the sculpture had occupied for nearly six decades. He replaced it with photographs of the sculpture on the surrounding walls and left the domed area empty. Apple’s intervention – decentring traditional ideas of art – led to an even more important development for the Sarjeant. In the years that followed, artists were invited to create new works to sit where The Wrestlers once held sway. These dome installations brought leading New Zealand artists to Whanganui and into the collections of the Sarjeant.
Despite this rich heritage of collecting, curating and residency, the Sarjeant is still searching for a signature work or artist.
Another development, the creation of the Tylee Cottage Residency in 1986, has similarly allowed four decades of artists, including Laurence Aberhart, Anne Noble, and Christopher Ulutupu, to spend time and find inspiration in the River City. Curator of collections Jennifer Taylor says the residency has provided the gallery with a unique way of adding to its contemporary collections “with narratives that reflect only this place”.
A new history of the gallery, written by Martin Edmond, confirms what an interesting first century it has had – all the more so, given the city’s size. The opening exhibition, Nō Konei / From Here, with its playful pun on place and time, promises to showcase the best of that history and confirm the Sarjeant’s status as one of Aotearoa’s great public art collections.
Yet despite this rich heritage of collecting, curating and residency, the Sarjeant is still arguably searching for a signature work or artist. There’s no Picasso or Monet, and it holds only a few paintings by Colin McCahon or Frances Hodgkins (the nearby Whanganui Regional Museum has a formidable collection of Gottfried Lindauer portraits). And while Edith Collier may one day rival McCahon or Hodgkins in popularity, there isn’t currently a single artist, like Len Lye or Friedensreich Hundertwasser, to provide an obvious public face for the collection. Design, rather than painting or sculpture, may be the Sarjeant’s strongest drawcard.
A conceptual shift
The new wing, Te Pātaka o Tā Te Atawhai Archie John Taiaroa, has been a long time coming. Warren and Mahoney were first confirmed as its architects some 25 years ago, but disputes over funding and design led to extensive delays. In some ways, this now appears a blessing in disguise. “The old building, it turns out, was only 5% of the NZ Building Standard,” says Clifford. “And if we had just got on with it in 1999, we would have finished before the Canterbury earthquakes,” thus making the original building potentially unusable. “So the fact that there were some delays meant earthquake strengthening as part of the restoration of the heritage building was an absolute necessity.”
There has also been some rethinking of the building’s appearance. The extension’s exterior was originally intended to match the older building. But it was established a few years ago that Oamaru stone would not meet engineering requirements for the type of building, says Clifford. The subsequent development provided an opportunity for architects to collaborate with Te Kāhui Toi, the artist group appointed by Whanganui iwi representatives Te Rūnanga o Tūpoho, to reimagine the look and meaning of the new structure.
The gallery had a long-held desire for the new wing to connect more deeply with tangata whenua and to respond more overtly to the importance of the location. Long before Queen’s Park existed, Pukenamu had been the location of a pā. The new wing is named for Sir Archie Taiaroa (1937-2010), who chaired the Whanganui River Māori Trust Board and marine and seafood agency Te Ohu Kaimoana.
“The challenge of embedding our inherited ancestral thinking and spiritual practice into the cloak of the new pātaka and other elements of the building was culturally significant,” says Cecelia Kumeroa, curator programmes and engagement, and cultural lead for Te Kāhui Toi. “We hope that we have honoured Tā Te Atawhai Archie John Taiaroa and all our people.”
Across the exterior, tioata (metal shards) extend from polished black granite cladding, giving the effect of kānapanapa, the reflection of sunlight on shimmering water. While this refers specifically to a river effect, the facade provided another evocative reference on the misty day of my visit, that of falling rain. It is beautiful, and strikingly distinct from the heritage building. The shift in material and colour encourages (or risks) a conceptual division between the two spaces: the old and the new.
Bridge metaphor
I was given a tour of the building’s interior before the rehanging of the art. The blank, open spaces suggested the possibilities and challenges ahead. One alteration was immediately evident: in former times, visitors would enter from the town centre, up the steps of Maria Place, flanked by the Whanganui Regional Museum on one side and the War Memorial Centre on the other. Now, the original entry doors are for emergency exits only.
Instead, gallery goers enter from the side, where a glass atrium connects the heritage building with the new extension. Inside, steps lead visitors up to a bridge, which connects the two wings. This bridge is a carved waka, which will remain under wraps until opening day.
A change to one building has ramifications for others.
John Niko Maihi, Whanganui kaumātua and author, likened the waka to an “umbilical cord” between the two buildings. It’s a powerful metaphor, and one that reinforces the complex symbolism of the architecture. Here, the European/ Pākehā culture largely responsible for the original Sarjeant building represents the past, while the forward-looking new building celebrates Māori thinking.
As I stood on the bridge, it was lovely to see Whanganui’s famous palm trees from a different perspective. More striking was the view of St Mary’s Church, a work of brutalist architecture that looked remarkably fine. It was a reminder that a change to one building has ramifications for others.
But from the bridge, which way to turn? The Sarjeant wings offer two very different spaces for art. In the rejuvenated old building, light fills the rooms, allowing the honey-toned matai floorboards to contrast with the ornate plaster detailing. These are the grand, old-world spaces one finds in Europe or on the east coast of the United States, but rarely in Aotearoa. Across the way, the new areas are large, white rectangles, enhanced by blond oak flooring. They may lack the storied history of the old building, but they offer curators a variety of new spaces for art.
Eggs in one basket?
Not everyone in Whanganui is convinced that $74m should have gone to one place. Gallery friends point out that most of the funding came from central government and private donations. But ratepayers will have to cover annual expenses. And the Whanganui arts scene extends beyond Pukenamu Queen’s Park. There are the magnificent New Zealand Glassworks, a thriving gallery scene and underground music venues.
More broadly, the city has other needs. Talking to locals at a cafe near the district council buildings, I found the arts were not at the top of their list. One resident noted that Whanganui needed more opportunities for teenagers. Another simply wished for a good Italian restaurant.
Still, there is something remarkable about this city. From Henry Sarjeant to Sir Archie Taiaroa, people have risen to make the region a better place. Many mentioned local heroes Ross Mitchell-Anyon, who bought derelict heritage buildings in the early 2000s and made them available to artists at reasonable rates, and studio potter Rick Rudd, whose nationally important ceramics collection opened here in 2015.
One resident noted that Whanganui needed more opportunities for teenagers. Another simply wished for a good Italian restaurant.
There seems to be a sincere effort to work together. As another local hero, musician and public transport advocate Anthonie Tonnon told me, the city’s small size makes it harder for social cliques to develop.
Whanganui Mayor Andrew Tripe cited his city’s “three points of difference”: the heritage buildings, the awa and the arts and creative sector. “And the great thing about the Sarjeant is that it embraces all three.”
Tripe also supports the Coastal Arts Trail, an arts initiative linking Whanganui with Palmerston North and New Plymouth. He has high hopes for the Sarjeant as a destination drawing international and domestic visitors. Asked what might be next for Whanganui, he mentions improved airlinks and new cultural events. First, though, “We just need a hotel.” After all, all those new visitors will need a place to stay.