Sarjeant Happenings: Cataloguing project opens window into Edith Collier's world

Emily Woodcock and India Donaldson became interested in Edith Collier after reading her letters. Photos / Supplied

Cake recipes and other glimpses of domestic life sit side by side with pencil sketches, hefty books about art and how-to guides on pen and ink drawing, clouds and horses, in Edith Collier's library collection.

Emily Woodcock and India Donaldson, two Master of Museum and Heritage Practice students from Victoria University of Wellington, have just completed a project cataloguing a third of the Whanganui artist's collection of art books, periodicals and ephemera.

Supervised by Jennifer Taylor Moore, curator of collections at the Sarjeant Gallery, the students began rehousing and relocating the books and loose items held in the Alexander Heritage and Research Library.

The material will go into archival storage at the Sarjeant Gallery and will be part of an exhibition when the gallery on Queens Park reopens in 2024.

The students, who have both studied art history, felt a personal connection with Collier through reading her letters and annotations in her art books and journals.

"It was quite easy for us to connect with her because we both have massive collections of art books. So it was kind of like looking at our own collections 100 years ago. Edith also had a huge collection of New Zealand art magazines," Donaldson said.

Reaching back in time they were inspired to write Collier a letter, which they posted on the Sarjeant Gallery Facebook.

They also made a buffalo cake, an early 1900s Edmond's original. Collier had written the recipe inside the cover of Royal Academy Lectures on Painting by G. Clausen.

"She was quite resourceful, so she would use the front and back of books, both sides of the page.

"Maybe she found a recipe in an Edmond's Cook Book she liked and wrote it in a book she had on her at the time, or perhaps paper was scarce," Woodcock said.

The students began an extensive cataloguing process, writing by hand all the registration details and years of accession, making notes about the condition of every item.

They then entered details on Excel spreadsheets.

Each item will ultimately be available to see online on Explore the Collection, the Sarjeant's multi-award-winning digital collection portal.

The pair also made a buffalo cake, for which Collier had written the recipe inside the cover of Royal Academy Lectures on Painting. Photo / Supplied

"We also took measurements of each book so Jennifer could prepare them for archival storage in clamshell boxes, which are made out of archival-grade card. Loose items will be in clear page protectors. Some things were quite fragile," Woodcock said.

Collier was ahead of her time in some ways and had studied modernist art overseas. The students appreciated the artist's attitude on several counts.

"People weren't used to women who had opinions. I loved how she was so anti-marriage and so worried about losing all her friends because they were getting married.

"She was so focused on her career, enjoying herself and experiencing new things," Woodcock said."

"When returning to Whanganui she had to take up a lot of family responsibilities, which would have been due to the times and we know the Collier family was quite extensive. We know she continued landscape painting and family portraits."

The students were appreciative of the support from the Sarjeant Gallery and the Alexander Heritage and Research Library where they had access to the temperature-controlled area of the building.

"We were rummaging through her personal collection and it was interesting to think that she probably wouldn't have thought that everything she was collecting would be studied by two university students in the future," Woodcock said.