Alan Reynolds’s Saga is one of the paintings currently on display in Te Papa’s Ngā Toi exhibition. It is described as a winter landscape, with dead plants bursting from the frozen earth. Ngā Toi’s On The Wall description. Amongst the bleakness, my eyes are drawn to just-a-little-right of centre, whereRead more
On 24 August, 2013 The WOW Factor, which celebrates 25 years of the WearableArt™ Awards, opened to the public. The exhibition features over 25 fantastic garments from the award’s history, and for the next 25 weeks I am going to endeavour to post a ‘Wearable of the Week’. ‘The Wearables’Read more
While last week came to a shakey end on Friday, we are hoping that today’s sunshine filled day bodes well for a smooth and steady week, as we have quite a bit of work to catch up on in order to get two new exhibitions up for Saturday. As Friday afternoon’sRead more
Chilean curator Roberta Bacic is a keynote speaker at the Third International Visual Methods conference in Wellington hosted by Victoria University and Te Papa. We are fortunate to also have her speak on the fascinating and politically-significant stories of arpilleras. Arpilleras – tapestries or quilts sewn by womenRead more
Eruini Te Tupe-o-Tū Studio portrait by Edward Smallwood Richards of Wellington E. S. Richards’s studio portrait of the Māori chief Eruini Te Tupe presents Eruini posed seated facing front-on to the camera arrested in time, comfortably dressed in European clothing with a kaitaka cloak arranged across his upperRead more
Kia orana e kia manuia tatou katoatoa, In this third blogpost of Te Epetoma o te Reo Māori Kuki Airani – Cook Islands Māori Language week, Grace Hutton (Collection Manager Pacific Cultures) shares with us some wonderful images taken by George Crummer, a photographer who worked in the Cook Islands in the late nineteenthRead more
It took many hours of sorting, registration, taxonomy review, preparation and coordination, then 12 long sessions in the imaging lab. Te Papa Science staff have now completed the online access for 2241 black & white engravings of plants collected on Captain Cook’s first voyage. The Te Papa Collection Online narratives about the Banks andRead more
The paper conservation section of the Conservation and Object Support team at Te Papa was pleased to host Liisi Hakala, from Helsinki’s Metropolia University in Finland, for a three month internship from March to June this year. Liisi is about to enter her final year of a four-year bachelor’s degreeRead more
As Te Papa hosts we get to see, interact and work with some amazing things. Since I started 4 years ago I have been immersed in the final 24 hours of Pompeii, spent my days with works by some of the great European masters, been surrounded by the intricate tapaRead more
Sounding out Andy Warhol Tēnā koutou, ko Amos Mann āhau, a newly arrived Web & Multimedia Producer here at Te Papa Tongarewa. I’m a big fan of Andy Warhol and it was very exciting to arrive at Te Papa the same week he did. Te Papa’s Warhol: Immortal exhibition isRead more
It is with sadness that we farewell the distinguished New Zealand potter Mirek Smisek, who passed away last week. Mirek’s life was dedicated to his craft. He began working with clay in Sydney, after having left his devastated homeland, Czechoslovakia, at the end of World War II. Mirek consolidated his passion forRead more
We would like to pay a special tribute to Samoan artist Joseph Churchward who sadly passed away last weekend. We were privileged to have worked with Joseph in 2008, when my colleague Sean Mallon (Senior Curator Pacific Cultures) and I curated the exhibition Letter Man: Joseph Churchward’s world of type (2008). I recallRead more
A sketchbook can be described as a supply of paper conveniently held in a folder or binding. It can be a small note book or a flamboyant colourful scrap book. Artists have used sketchbooks for centuries for recording ideas and thoughts, and once back in the studio they use these workingRead more
Last weekend, on Saturday the 13th April 2013, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam reopened to the public after a decade of renovations. Imagine that, ten years to perfect your vision and build a new experience for the visitor from the ground up. The Rijksmuseum is an iconic art museum that isRead more
When Te Papa purchased Easy Chair two years ago, we acquired it for its associations with modernism and with the Auckland store jon jansen. But we wanted to verify the designer. Detailed research – surveying design publications, comparing similar chairs, identifying woods – finally led me to the original SwedishRead more
