Te Papa has a strong collection of Colin McCahon’s early religious works, including three paintings from 1947 that depict events from story of the Passion: Christ taken from the cross, Entombment (after Titian), and King of the Jews. One of the enduring myths surrounding McCahon’s early paintings is that wereRead more
A three-metre giant squid specimen washed up on a beach on Wellington’s South Coast yesterday (2nd April).Read more
This amazingly comprehensive compilation of archival material relating to William Colenso’s botanical collections has just been published by the New Zealand Native Orchid Group. The material has been researched by Ian St George and includes unpublished work by the late Bruce Hamlin (former Curator of Botany at the National MuseumRead more
Chris Horne of the Wellington Botanical Society recently sent me a fern frond they collected on one of their trips. Although the frond is small and lacking the diagnostic reproductive characters, I think it is the introduced holly fern (Cyrtomium falcatum). It looks like the shining spleenwort (Asplenium oblongifolium), but theRead more
Breaking news from our squid fix-it team – the work is complete and we are on track to reopen the colossal squid exhibition to the public from tomorrow 21 March 2009. Yesterday Robert Clendon our Conservator and Hutch Wilco, one of our exhibition preparators finished the last few tweaks to theRead more
One hundred years ago, Britain’s Royal Navy was threatened by the modern fleet being built by Germany. In March 1909, the New Zealand Premier, Sir Joseph Ward, responded to the defence crisis by promising that New Zealand would underwrite a ship for the Royal Navy. He declared: ‘We distant sonsRead more
John Reynolds’ work Cloud has come back from its stint at the Auckland Art Gallery for the 2008 Walters Prize exhibition late last year and it is now up and on show in the Contemporary Focus section of Toi Te Papa, Level 5. John came down from Auckland to installRead more
The rare, tetraploid maidenhair spleenwort (Asplenium trichomanes subsp. quadrivalens) has only recently been rediscovered in New Zealand. Several people have contacted me with possible additional sightings. As described by the Scoop website, Jack Ritchie had a maidenhair spleenwort self-sow on a rock used to construct a water feature in hisRead more
We have men at work on the squid tank again today. I caught up with Don, one of our contractors, just before he was heading off to lunch after a hard morning’s work on the tank. He’s putting in a second pump and filter system into one end of the squidRead more
More news from the squid tank. This morning I caught up with Robert Clendon the conservator who is looking after the work on the squid. Over the past few weeks we’ve been a bit concerned about the hooks on the tentacles and the arms. It looked as though the hooks could beRead more
On Tuesday we started remedial work on the colossal squid and her tank. Things are going very well and to schedule. Yesterday we put up the barriers around the tank and lifted up the huge lid, using a forklift. We then drained most of the liquid out of the tank.Read more
Science curator Leon Perrie explains ‘Punga’ is a quintessential Kiwi word used to refer to tree ferns or sometimes, more specifically, the trunks of tree ferns. Read more
Botany has recently acquired a unique collection: a special group of calcified red algae known as the corallines. Coralline algae are abundant and ubiquitous throughout the world’s oceans, playing very important roles in marine ecosystems. The encrusting, or crustose, species can form unusual lumpy, warty-looking layers in the intertidal, sometimesRead more
The maidenhair spleenwort is a spleenwort fern (Asplenium) that (supposedly) looks like a maidenhair fern (Adiantum, see below). The 600 or so of the world’s spleenworts are characterised by having their reproductive structures in lines away from the margins of their fronds’ undersides. Two maidenhair spleenworts occur in New Zealand.Read more
Ian Prior, noted epidemiologist and arts patron, died earlier this week. Luncheon under the ash tree, an exhibition organised by Aratoi which celebrated Ian and Elespie Prior’s art collection, toured galleries around New Zealand a few years ago. A couple of works on show in and near Te Papa stand inRead more
