Sarjeant Gallery curator of collections Jennifer Taylor Moore will be welcoming visitors to view the collection store over the next two weekends.
Photo / Bevan Conley
Sarjeant Gallery curator of collections Jennifer Taylor Moore will be welcoming visitors to view the collection store over the next two weekends.
Photo / Bevan Conley
Included in the Whanganui Artists Open Studios events calendar is the rare opportunity to enter the Sarjeant Gallery collection store.
Curator of collections Jennifer Taylor Moore will be leading behind-the-scenes tours this weekend and next, in which visitors will be able to view seldom-seen works from the 8000-plus items inthe collection.
After Sarjeant staff completed the monumental task of moving the collection from the unsafe Queenspark building to the current temporary premises at 38 Taupo Quay in 2014, they were faced with the task of housing the collection in the new, limited space and devising safe storage.
Taylor Moore likens the systems to a "giant game of Tetris" and said it has been an evolving process.
"The Edith Collier collection is to the forefront as a lot of people come especially to view her work," Taylor Moore said.
"Before the borders closed we had a lot of overseas visitors who wanted to see her work."
Big canvases are rolled and stored on special racks made by Tate Engineering Limited in Whanganui. Photo / Bevan Conley
Each item is carefully stored according to its size, shape and fragility in or on specifically designed racks and containers - and every artwork has a story.
Small, fragile works are carefully stored in Solander boxes and Taylor Moore takes out a box of four beautifully painted eggshells that had been hidden away in a corner of the basement at the Queenspark building.
"Back when the collection was small, they would have been put away and over the years, as the collection grew, they would have been forgotten behind all the larger items.
"I have been able to identify the Chinese artist who painted them and the date they were gifted to the Sarjeant."
A recently gifted item is a large, framed photographic print of some men in a canoe on the Whanganui River early last century.
A portrait of Ellen Sarjeant, who purchased the gallery's first works with her second husband John Neame, is included in the painting collection. Photo / Bevan Conley
Taylor Moore said the owner had rescued it from a closing accountancy firm some years ago. She has an inkling as to who the subjects and the photographer were and looks forward to doing more research.
The tours last 45 minutes and cost $10 per person. Book at the Sarjeant Gallery 06 349 0506 or online at info@sarjeant.org.nz.
