Sarjeant relationships: Bill Milbank and Laurence Aberhart

Bill Milbank was the director of the Sarjeant Gallery from 1978 to 2006. Photo / Supplied

A collaboration between three men created the Tylee Cottage art residency, now in its 36th year and one of New Zealand's oldest.

The men were former director of the Sarjeant Gallery Bill Milbank, documentary photographer Laurence Aberhart and John McCormack, then adviser to the QE11 Arts Council (now known as the Arts Council of New Zealand).

In 1986 Tylee Cottage had recently been restored through the efforts of mayor Ron Russell (1974–1983) and, with the support of the Arts Council, the residency was established. Aberhart was the first artist to live at Tylee Cottage and for a whole year he took photographs of historic buildings around Whanganui.

At that stage, Aberhart was already well recognised by public art galleries as an important documentary photographer, though Aberhart states that the Tylee residency helped establish him further in his photography career, as well as get on his feet financially.

Milbank remembers: "[Aberhart] had done remarkably good work and very shortly after I became director, I acquired one or two works of his for the collection. He used a large format camera that gathers a lot of light, producing a high quality image and so all of his images are basically the same size as the negative in the camera. They are a print from the negative at the negative sizes. This is unusual today."

The Tylee Cottage residency artists gifted works of relevance to the Sarjeant in return for the financial stipend from the Arts Council, and this arrangement continues today, through the generous support of Creative New Zealand's Toi Uru Kahikatea (Arts Development) investment programme.

As a result of this exchange, the Sarjeant Collection has always kept growing, even when making acquisitions has not been possible, such as when fundraising for the redevelopment. The collection received a very significant contribution to its photographic record of Whanganui from Aberhart and now holds 125 of his works. These can be viewed on Explore the Collection portal on Sarjeant.org.nz

A Laurence Aberhart photograph of the now long gone Tingey building which stood opposite the Royal Whanganui Opera House.

"Laurence's project was the most comprehensive single look at the place over a given period of time. He gathered together some very remarkable works. Basically, the plan was that Laurence would work for a year and an exhibition would follow on from that; work produced would become part of the Sarjeant Collection," Milbank said.

"Aberhart talked fondly about the idea of being in Whanganui and being able to record the architectural heritage of this place. I was particularly interested in that as we [both] knew we had such a wealth of heritage buildings here."

Aberhart said, "The Sarjeant, driven very much by the director, was a power force in New Zealand art at the time I was involved. In the early 1980s the Sarjeant was the only public gallery in New Zealand that seemed to be doing anything progressive and meaningful, but being less financially resourced than most other similar institutions, was very much controlled by the 'times'. The 'times' being the main swing to Rogernomics and the up and down financial times that ensued in the latter part of the 1980s. As that took sway Bill's influence seemed to wane, encouraged by an anti-gallery and [anti]-director attitude [that was] seemingly council/mayor driven."

An exciting future, now assured for the Sarjeant Gallery and its nationally significant collection, greatly pleases both men who have been integral to the development of the gallery.

• Artists Andrew Drummond and Laurence Aberhart set up a studio in the Tingey building (pictured), and at one stage Bill Milbank tried very hard to get it relocated, to be beside Tylee Cottage as the artist studio. "I thought it would be absolutely ideal, just tucked back into where the garages are at the moment." Sadly it was not to be and the building was demolished.