The precious ceramic pieces in Helen Slater's rural Wanganui house are stacked two deep on glass shelves - and there are more than 1400.
"It's hard not to get inspired by her collection. When you first go there, it's quite overwhelming.
"It's incredible how much there is, and Helen doeshave them all lovingly on display," Sarjeant Gallery assistant curator Sarah McClintock said.
New Zealand Ceramics: The Slater Collection is the latest show at the Quay Gallery above Wanganui's information centre. It is also the first to be curated by Miss McClintock and is up until the end of May.
The Quay Gallery, well lit and designed to display objects, is an ideal location. The show consists of several hundred pieces from Mrs Slater's collection. Most were made by New Zealand's best known commercial pottery, Crown Lynn in Auckland, and by the smaller Auckland business Titian Studios.
But there is also work by five studio potters, Elizabeth Lissaman, Briar Gardner, Olive Jones, Elizabeth Matheson and Jovan Rancich. Most of them were self-taught.
The pieces come from a certain era and feed into New Zealand's love affair with the styles of the 1940s to 1960s, Miss McClintock said. It was a time when the country's potteries were at their peak and the potters all knew each other.
In those days Crown Lynn ware was used on most New Zealand tables for everyday meals - with imported British china brought out for special occasions. A nostalgia for the past and an enjoyment of "kiwiana" have made Crown Lynn extremely collectible since the pottery closed in 1989.
Titian Studios, open from 1958 until it was finally taken over by Crown Lynn in 1970, made cups, vases, troughs and figurines in lustrous and brilliant colours, many handpainted.
Miss McClintock's favourites in the show are a set of jugs made especially for McAlpine refrigerators and the classic Crown Lynn swan. Mrs Slater has spent 30 years amassing her collection, one of the best of New Zealand ceramics. It was the subject of a major exhibition at the Sarjeant Gallery in 2004.
This year's Quay Gallery exhibition is complemented by a show of Kapiti potter Mirek Smisek's work at the Sarjeant.
Mrs Slater said her late husband, Basil, was also a collector and specialised in pieces from the British Ridgway pottery.
