Focus on Blomfield: Eruption paintings take centre-stage at the Sarjeant Gallery

A.D Wills' lithograph of Charles Blomfield's 'Mount Tarawera in Eruption, June 10, 1886' (from the Native Village of Waitangi, Lake Tarawera, N.N.). Lithograph on paper, 1954/5/1. Gift of Weeks (Wanganui) Ltd.

Two massive volcanic eruptions are bringing fire and smoke to the Sarjeant Gallery’s latest Collection Focus, this time on works by painter Charles Blomfield (b.1848, d.1926).

The exhibition is timed to coincide with the 175th anniversary of the artist’s birth, and will be showing until March 5, 2023.

The painting Mt Ngāuruhoe in Eruption (1909) was donated to the gallery this year by the Paltridge family. The painting had been bought at auction in the late 1920s by Annie Loring, the maternal grandmother of Paltridge’s father, and along with the house passed to Paltridge’s grandmother when Annie died.

The painting was displayed in the lounge of Loring’s home in Te Atatu, Auckland for more than 70 years.

Family representative Antony Paltridge recalled: “I’m 58, and as long as I can remember, the painting hung on the wall of the lounge of the house in Te Atatu above the china cabinet where my grandmother kept her best glasses and china,” Paltridge said.

His mother Maureen Paltridge arranged for the painting to be conserved by Auckland conservator Nel Rol in 2000.

“Nel had the painting for about a year, carefully cleaning off 70 years of dust and grime and addressing the borer in the frame [the house at Te Atatu was full of borer]. The painting was then displayed in the lounge of my parent’s home in Papatoetoe, Auckland, until February 2021.”

Following the deaths of Antony Paltridge’s parents, the family decided to donate the painting to a public gallery or museum.

The eruption of Mt Ngāuruhoe was well-covered by the press of the day. The Sydney Morning Herald on March 11, 1909, reported experiences of passengers and tourists travelling by coach from Waiouru to Tokaanu: “[...] when they got close to the mountain about 11am a huge black column mixed with steam and ashes shot skywards, rolling over and over till it reached a height of about 3,000 feet above the crater”.

Antony said he was happy the Sarjeant agreed to take the painting into its care, and that was a view shared by his wider family.

“Given Blomfield would have almost certainly visited Whanganui many times during his travels, it seems fitting it has a new home in the Sarjeant Gallery, and that it can be seen by the public to mark his 175th birthday,” Paltridge said.

The exhibition also includes a lithograph of Blomfield’s fiery, original painting of Mt Tarawera erupting on June 10, 1886. While Blomfield did not witness the eruption, he created the image either purely from his imagination or by utilising eyewitness accounts of the event. The lithograph was included as a fold-out plate at the back of E. Wakefield’s New Zealand Illustrated.

“A. D. Wills, the lithographer and publisher of the book, lived in Whanganui and had premises on Drew’s Avenue in part of the building currently occupied by the Sarjeant Gallery on Taupō Quay,” curator of collections Jennifer Taylor Moore said.

Blomfield was born in London and immigrated to New Zealand as a teenager. While gold prospecting in Otago, he became fascinated by the bush and landscape, which became a prominent feature in his artwork.

“He travelled throughout New Zealand while his wife looked after their seven children. He had no art training, but was successful exhibiting in both New Zealand and Australia,” Taylor Moore said.

Blomfield is well-known for his paintings of the Pink and White Terraces, made before they were destroyed less than two years later by the eruption of Mt Tarawera in 1886. His sketches and paintings are some of the main records of these extraordinary siliceous sinter formations.

“This meant that his paintings were quite popular,” Taylor Moore added.

“A lot of reproductions were made, and he did a lot of extra paintings of them. That is where he was most successful, and after that, his paintings went out of vogue and his painting career lost momentum.”

Also in the exhibition is a painting owned by the Mangamahu Community Hall Committee on long-term loan to the Sarjeant. The Shades, Aranui (1889) depicts a large farm station between Fordell and Ohakune which has since been divided into smaller holdings.

Collection Focus: Charles Blomfield, December 17, 2022 – March 5, 2023