The arts consist of a constantly evolving but basically stable ecosystem of practitioners, auction houses, theatre groups of all shapes and sizes, musical ensembles, freelance musicians and singers, collectors, increasingly popular art fairs, and public and dealer galleries.
A figure common to all those is the patron. The image of the benevolent, sometimes bejewelled, plutocrat bestowing largesse on a favoured practitioner, is not entirely inaccurate, but nor is it the whole story.
Patrons come and go, but they seldom leave as conspicuously as James Wallace, following his convictions and jail time for indecent assault and attempting to pervert the course of justice. The Wallace Arts Trust is now the Arts House Trust, the latter having taken over the former’s assets, and Wallace is no longer a trustee. The eponymous Wallace Arts Awards, which comprised $275,000 of his estimated $2 million a year in fine arts support, are no more. When it comes to patronage there will never be enough, but that is a lot of slack for others to pick up.
Some patrons, such as Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, begin as performers and recipients of patronage themselves. Others, such as playwright Sir Roger Hall or film-maker Garth Maxwell, as creators, and for yet others, such as Dame Theresa Gattung, patronage is part of another agenda altogether.
Some people would argue that there shouldn’t be any patronage and others that no amount is enough. The arts have never been self-sustaining in Aotearoa. The amount people pay at the box office rarely covers a professional ballet, orchestra or theatre production. Historically, much of the shortfall has been made up by sponsors and, especially, central and local government funding. With the country in economic hunker-down mode, that support is currently in flux. Moreover, changes to how the government, through Creative New Zealand, funds the arts are causing further uncertainty. Arguably, patronage has never been more necessary.
Patronage v collecting
Patrons should not be confused with collectors. Collectors are people who buy themselves lots of presents. Patrons’ philanthropy works in the other direction, benefiting not only artists themselves but also all the people who get to enjoy their paintings or performances the patronage funds.
However, many patrons start as collectors. The Prospect Collection was a landmark endeavour in which 22 people in 1979 chipped in $500 each to buy art that no individual owned but which they shared between themselves. This was the start of serious collecting for eminent patrons Andrew and Jenny Smith, but then, says Andrew, “as you get involved with the arts, you just see the continuing need at all levels, and you begin to contribute where you think you can help”.
The Auckland-based Smiths – the family business was Smith & Smith glass – are active and involved supporters of a wide variety of artistic pursuits.
“It really took off,” says Andrew, when “the children were grown up and we weren’t paying school fees. There was a bit of money spare and also more time.”
For Leigh Melville, managing director and co-owner of Art+Object auction house, patron and co-chair of the New Zealand at Venice Biennale Patrons Trust and former chair of the Auckland Writers Festival, it’s about community.
“I grew up in a family where voluntary work in your community was something that everybody did. I believe that community takes input from a variety of individuals, and if we all don’t do our little bit here and there, nothing will happen.”
The Dame Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation to aid young singers was founded by the soprano in 2004. Go back a few decades and the young singer was on the brink of international opera stardom and very short of resources.
“I raised my own funds,” says Dame Kiri, who left New Zealand to further her career in 1966. “I think I went to England with about $9-10,000, which I raised myself, along with some donations, but that’s all I had. I had very little patronage. I had a couple of people who really supported me, helping me financially.
“I only had £10 a week, and most of it was spent on singing lessons. Then I was on my way in a fairly short time, which was extremely lucky.”
Film-maker Garth Maxwell, who sponsors two Creative Project Prizes through the University of Auckland, says he was inspired by a small prize he received as a student. Looking back, he realises it was a big encouragement to him in a career that traditionally never wants for onlookers predicting doom and failure. “My idea was to bridge the academic world with the commercial, but to support ideas that may not necessarily get immediate market acceptance,” Maxwell says.
The inaugural beneficiaries were Cian Dennan, who received $5000 for a collection of erotic poetry reflecting on what it was like to grow up half-Italian and Catholic; and Troy Blackman, who was awarded $2200 for a short film script, Zebra.
Giving and receiving
It’s benevolent but it’s also very rewarding. “There’s no downside,” says Maxwell, who reports the recipients “seemed delighted when I met them. I don’t need to insert myself in their lives or try and produce their work or anything like that. I just want them to feel recognised and encouraged.”
Says Melville: “You might make a financial donation because you can, but in return, you get life-enriching experiences, and it’s also always, of course, about building relationships.”
Dame Theresa Gattung previously sponsored Arts Foundation Laureates and says there was plenty in it for her. “The patrons who are supporting the awards get together for lunch, there are evening events, the actual announcement, and the laureate awards themselves are phenomenal and different.”
There’s a widespread belief that arts patronage comes with copious tax advantages. It’s not a view universally shared by patrons. “You can set up a foundation,” says Roger Hall, “but it’s only worth it if you’re at that top level of means.”
If the arts organisation is a registered charity, then up to a third of the gift can be claimed back by individuals as a tax credit. “If you give money to the foundation you receive a third back,” confirms Dame Kiri, “so there is an incentive and we hope to encourage people.”
But Andrew Smith notes an important anomaly in the visual arts. “The gifting of cash in general generates an income tax credit, the gifting of an artwork doesn’t give you any relief.”
Which is why anyone wanting to divest an artwork is less likely to donate it to their local gallery than to sell it at auction. Because public galleries can’t afford auction prices, major pieces frequently disappear indefinitely into private collections. There is much support for this to be reformed.
Some of the best rewards might be intangible.
Dame Kiri: “Some [recipients] have said to me, ‘What do you expect?’ I’ve said, ‘We get nothing out of it except your success. That’s what we’re hoping for.’”
In Gattung’s case, “I am astonished at what I consider the reasonably modest amount that you can spend to be a bronze patron of the Auckland Writers Festival and get such a good benefit.” Bronze-level patronage costs $550 and the thank-you includes front row seating, preferential booking, discounted tickets, a patrons lounge (with snacks) and your name in the programme.
Or you might get a name on a wall, like Andrew and Jenny Smith at Auckland Art Gallery, though that doesn’t mean Jenny is too grand to put in hours as one of the unpaid docents who are on hand to help visitors.
Or you might be singled out for recognition, like interior designer Sonja Hawkins, who was named Objectspace Honorary Patron in April after years of support for the Grey Lynn, Auckland gallery, which focuses on works of design, craft and architecture.
“I willingly put up my hand on many occasions to host events and talk about my journey with craft and design and why we should value Objectspace as an institution and support it,” says Hawkins. “I’ve introduced my friends and they’ve willingly come on board, so I’ve been acknowledged. It’s very humbling.”
There’s a view that putting your name out there is being slightly un-Kiwi, but there’s nothing wrong with enjoying such fripperies if they encourage benevolence, says Roger Hall.
“No one’s going to die from seeing a name, it won’t give anybody a heart attack.”
Dame Kiri’s activity has helped her make the transition home.
“Having given up living in England was quite a shock, because I loved England so much. Having decided to come down here [to see] my grandson was hard. I missed England for two solid years, but it’s working its way out now, and I see that there’s a lot to be done for singers.”
And percussionists. The Smiths support the Auckland Philharmonia’s timpanist chair. Incumbent Steve Logan recently got funding for four new drums but that left “two old, tired ones on the side”, says Andrew. “So we had a group of people around and we rallied up about $40,000 and managed to buy the orchestra two new drums.
“You just see the pleasure in Steve’s face, having a full set of brand-new drums. There’s huge satisfaction in that.”
Hands-off patronage
One reward patrons should not expect is the satisfaction of influencing an artist’s work. There’s no local equivalent of Pope Julius II trying to tell Michelangelo just what he wanted on that ceiling.
“You’ve got to let the expertise run its course,” says Hawkins, who with financier husband Glenn is also a patron of the music charity Play It Strange.
“There’s much that goes on at Q Theatre that doesn’t particularly push our buttons,” says Andrew Smith, who sits on the Auckland theatre’s trust board and its Q Theatre Ltd board. “But that’s not the point. The point of that philanthropy is that Q has a real contribution to make towards Auckland city and so whether we like everything that goes on there or not is unimportant. The influence that we might have, hopefully, is to encourage Auckland Council to continue their support.”
A Community of givers
There’s no denying many of the same names turn up over and again in organisations’ lists of patrons. Call it a community.
“There is a very small group of people whose commitment to giving is phenomenal,” says Melville. “Most of the time they’re people who perhaps made a small step in the water and had a great experience. And so their desire to give increases, and it’s also about the friendships that you develop.”
A high-profile example of such a community is the group New Zealand at Venice, which not only provides financial support for artists chosen to represent Aotearoa at the Biennale but often descends en masse on the city to provide moral support.
Melville instances the case of et al, the artist who exhibited in 2005 and suffered a level of uninformed criticism that was unusually obtuse even by New Zealand standards.
“That’s a pretty punishing experience for an artist. So to have a bunch of people who are there backing you and have chosen to not only make a financial gift, but to travel all that way and be there with you is pretty special.”
Dame Kiri is also a believer in the power of turning up. “We have [baritone] Phillip Rhodes in Australia in August. I’ll go over to see him. It’s nice to encourage New Zealanders and go and see them sing.”
She is well aware of the extent of her expertise and how best to use it.
“I’m not a great teacher. I’m very good at choosing voices. And I think I’m very good at saying which ones will do well. You’ve also got to look at the psyche of a lot of these people, and you [might] think: they’re not really going to be able to cope mentally with this.”
The community can also provide support for its own members, especially as they start their patronage journeys.
“I’ve sometimes felt a bit of a fraud,” says Objectspace board member Kim Smith (no relation to Andrew and Jenny). “Some of the people who were on that board when I joined were stars in my eyes; people who were professionals working in arts fields and had considerably more to say for themselves than I did. But you learn on the job.”
Eventually Smith, who has also contributed crucial financial support to the independent films of writer-director David Blyth, learnt how she could make a significant contribution. “I’m good at recognising something that would be useful to somebody, acting as a go-between. I’m quite happy to say, ‘Oh, look, you should meet so and so. They’re working on something that would relate to what you’re working on.’”
She emphasises that patronage is also about more than the artworks. It’s a lot easier to get funds for a bright, shiny painting than it is for a new ceiling that won’t let in rain to damage that painting.
“There are people like Jenny and Andrew Smith who support operating expenses,” she says. “She puts her hand in her pocket for the expenses of a particular organisation and I know she doesn’t need recognition for it.”
Ceiling costs can go through the roof, but entry-level patronage is also available, such as Maxwell’s two Creative Project Prizes of $5000 and $2200.
“It took a bit of to-ing and fro-ing with the university to find out what would be useful,” says Maxwell of the use to which he has put his legacy. “As long as the investment survives, I’ll be able to keep doing it.” He doesn’t choose the recipients, but there are a few criteria.“I wanted it to be about adventurous work, not just middle-of-the-road stuff, which is destined to automatically be successful in a sort of boring way.”
New ways to give
Roger Hall, who contributes to an eponymous Arts Foundation theatre laureate award, has an even cheaper suggestion. “With places which are struggling, possibly on every theatre ticket there should be $5 extra that goes towards restoring the theatre. People who are of average means can effectively be patrons.”
You can even be a patron for no money down. When people see Hall’s name attached to theatre group Tadpole Productions as a capital P Patron, they are likely to sit up and take notice.
The art world is filled with lots of anonymous donors but Melville believes, “When you allow your name to be used and show people that you’re supportive, then perhaps they feel comfortable to do the same.”
“I don’t particularly like my name being out the front,” says Kim Smith.
“But as I’ve aged, I have realised it’s quite useful, sometimes, for my name to be attached, because I’ve got a long-standing history and some people recognise my name. Otherwise, it’s irrelevant. All that matters is the project.”
Yet another version of patronage is represented by My Art, a sort of art layby programme mediated by the Hawkins. They pay the dealer for an artwork on behalf of a would-be buyer who gets to acquire the piece immediately. The buyer pays the sum off interest-free over a set period. Sonja Hawkins says no one has ever defaulted.
Occasionally, the patronage “investment” doesn’t pay off and benefactors may have to leave the money and run.
Dame Kiri knows when to cut her foundation’s losses.
“There have been some [singers] where we have just said, ‘It’s not going to work for you.’ And a couple of them have had to go home. Maybe they’ve said it was the wrong decision, but they haven’t done anything since, so I think it was the right decision. We do say that when it’s wasting a lot of raised money – and this is other people’s money, not mine.” (Although Dame Kiri also contributes her own funds to the organisation.)
The Arts Foundation
Many strands in the arts patronage story lead back to the Arts Foundation, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. Conceived as a conduit for funding and a complement to the work of Creative New Zealand, the foundation, which is itself philanthropically funded, is at the controls of an impressive variety of mechanisms for connecting patrons – and dollars – to creators.
The gold standard for small-scale patronage is the foundation’s Boosted, a form of crowd funding for specific projects that has raised nearly $15 million and funded more than 2100 projects since 2013.
“I think people don’t see it as giving to the arts, because they’re like, ‘Oh, well, I’m just supporting my friend,’ but that is arts philanthropy and they are now part of that group,” says foundation general manager Jessica Palalagi.
In general, she says, having very specific award programmes has focused the patronage and the philanthropy. As for other arms of it, such as the laureates, no specialist knowledge is required. “Patrons have said to me, ‘Oh, thank god I don’t actually have to choose. I just give the money and then I see the nice result.’”
In line with the general non-intrusive approach to patronage, the foundation does not choose the projects that it, or rather its donors, fund.
“We choose those who choose. All we’re doing is curating the panel and then we’re sitting in an observer position. It’s really important that we have that credibility.”
Given the foundation’s role as a kind of one-stop patronage shop, the question of support of Māori and Pasifika artists naturally presents itself. There doesn’t seem to be a distinction there, as far as patrons are concerned.
“We do have one laureate award that is earmarked for an outstanding artist that has a whakapapa to Māori or to Pasifika,” says Palalagi. The Jillian Friedlander Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa Award “is probably our only one that is earmarked that way. Just thinking about some of our laureates, Māori art is well supported across lots of our categories. I feel like the foundation had a strong Māori presence within it since the beginning.”
As to the future: “What does the next 25 years look like? How do we continue that legacy?”
By raising money, of course. “We’ve started our Momentum campaign, which is a $5 million campaign, that I think is a really great nod to the original $5m that we received.
“But it’s also about finding the next generation of donors and philanthropists. We have had events with younger people, which has been awesome.
“We know a wealth transfer is happening and will continue to happen. So for our longevity, we have to think about these different audiences.”
In the meantime, there is plenty of opportunity to contribute and every little bit helps. As Melville says, “The first act of philanthropy is buying a ticket.”
The Godparents
Among patrons past, Dunedinite Charles Brasch (1909-1973) stands out for his foresight, benevolence and – mostly – excellent taste.
With independent means thanks to a family fortune, and a minor poet himself, he was the epitome of the cultivated European patron of the arts and thus an anomaly in New Zealand society of the time. He didn’t let that stop him.
Landfall, the literary and arts magazine he founded in 1947, helped fund and edited meticulously for 20 years, survives today. Its next issue will be a momentous 250th.
He was instrumental in fostering the likes of painters Colin McCahon and Toss Woollaston and writers Frank Sargeson and Janet Frame. The painters, in particular, faced vicious opposition to their groundbreaking work at one time or another.
Brasch also contributed to establishing the Mozart, Hodgkins and Burns fellowships, which have provided many musicians, visual artists and writers with a stipend and the peace and quiet of a workspace in Dunedin. The fellowships have between them nurtured many of our leading arts figures, including Maurice Gee, Ralph Hotere and Gillian Whitehead.
Brasch left his fine art collection to the Hocken Library and provided an endowment for acquisitions. Generationally, his patronage continues to influence the arts in New Zealand, if not financially then via the heritage of those whose careers he helped.
Businesswoman and philanthropist Dame Theresa Gattung is, as usual, unequivocal: she supports women artists. “I look at everything in life from a gender lens,” says Gattung. “I have given money to women’s causes and animal welfare since my first full-time pay cheque in my early 20s, and that is still the primary giving of my time and my money.”
Because? “It’s always the case that if there’s resource allocation, women miss out, so I’m just trying to rebalance that a bit. I like art. I don’t like it as much as business, it has to be said, but I do like it. I’ve chosen to support female artists, just as I’ve chosen to support female entrepreneurs.”
Consequently, among other female-focused philanthropic activities across a wide range of areas, she committed to sponsoring for five years the Theresa Gattung Female Arts Practitioners Award, one of the Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Arts Laureates.
Gattung says she enjoyed it very much.
“You hand over your money, and then you get the opportunity to meet the artist, go to the various lunches and dinners. But you’re not part of the decisions. I don’t decide who it is – they decide who it is. The five women that I supported were very different. It started with Yvonne Todd and the last one was Ladi6. That was a joyful experience.”