History of Whanganui’s Sarjeant Gallery captured by author Martin Edmond

Martin Edmond will be in Whanganui for the Sarjeant Gallery's grand reopening on Saturday, November 9. Photo / Mayu Kanamori

Author Martin Edmond’s five-year journey to capture the history of Whanganui’s Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery has come to an end.

He will be in the city for the gallery’s grand reopening on Saturday, November 9, with the official launch of his book Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery: A Whanganui biography the next day.

Edmond said the story of the gallery’s design could be made into a book or play on its own.

A 1915 competition to choose the design was won by a submission from the office of Edmund Anscombe in Dunedin.

Anscombe claimed the work as his own but Donald Hosie, an employee of Anscombe, designed the winning entry.

Edmond said papers in a 102-year-old time capsule found at the gallery showed original clerk of works John Brodie calling Anscombe “a bastard” for taking all the credit.

“The clerk had two sons away fighting in the war [World War I] and he knew what happened to Hosie, who was killed at the Battle of Passchendaele,” he said.

“There was a fair bit of emotion around those circumstances but, fortunately, both his sons survived.”

Edmond, born in Ohakune, said it was a hard book to write because he “kept finding out more and more”.

He was aided by an unpublished manuscript on the Sarjeant’s history from the early 1980s and a report by heritage architect Chris Cochran from the start of the gallery’s redevelopment project.

The gallery went through a moribund patch from the 1930s to the 1970s, especially from WWII until Gordon Brown was appointed gallery director in 1974, Edmond said.

“That period really interested me. People used to call it the morgue.

“It was moribund in terms of collecting and exhibiting, but it was still very much part of the local community.”

Edmond said two artists – James Alp and Lawrie Major – acted as custodians during that period.

Alp installed the gallery’s resident cat, Mrs McSweeney.

“I would have loved to have known a bit more about those two characters and expanded on that period a bit, but there wasn’t a lot to go on.

“Bill [Milbank, former Sarjeant director] told me most of what I put into the book. He knew both of them.”

Madonna della Sedia (Madonna of the Armchair) features in the Sarjeant's opening exhibition and Martin Edmond's book on the history of the gallery, Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery: A Whanganui biography.

Storage space was lacking in the gallery’s heritage building because, initially, it was conceived that the collection would be permanently exhibited, he said.

The Sarjeant collection now has about 8000 works spanning 400 years.

“That just represents a different understanding in 1919 to what we have now in 2024.

“It’s how we treat our houses, isn’t it? We don’t tend to change the pictures on the walls every six months.”

Edmond said former gallery director Greg Anderson, who took on the role after Milbank, had been instrumental in the redevelopment project.

Anderson left the role in 2022, but not before “getting the old building strengthened and the new one [Te Pātaka o Tā Te Atawhai Archie John Taiaroa] funded”.

“He and [Sarjeant Trust chairwoman] Nicola Williams were the two, but then Greg bowed out before the celebrations began.”

After being director for 15 years, Anderson left Whanganui to take up a role at Auckland Art Gallery.

Edmond said there had always been somebody on hand to keep the gallery going.

Lawyer Louis Cohen and honourary custodian Henry Newrick were other “unsung heroes” in the gallery’s early days.

Cohen was Ellen Sarjeant’s representative in Whanganui. Ellen’s husband Henry Sarjeant died in 1912 and left £30,000 for the Wanganui Borough Council to build and maintain a gallery.

“Those two kept the place alive through fairly desperate times,” Edmond said.

“I could never find out much about Cohen, apart from the fact he was Australian – from Cooma – and played first-class cricket for Canterbury.”

Edmond, who was last in Whanganui in March, said he was looking forward to seeing the finished redevelopment and excited for the reopening.

The Sarjeant reopens on Saturday and the launch of Edmond’s book follows at the gallery on Sunday afternoon.

He will be at the launch to read from Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery: A Whanganui biography.

Mike Tweed is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present, his focus is local government, primarily Whanganui District Council.