EXHIBITION SERVICES - Key Persons
Elizabeth Thomson is available to carry out artist talks and other related engagements at the conclusion of the installation. Exhibition curator Gregory O'Brien is essential to this aspect of the exhibition experience and is also available to attend and support particular events.
Job Titles:
- Exhibition Co - Ordinator and Writer
A 78 page book including all 60 works in the exhibition reproduced in colour, with a foreword by Gillian Deane, biographical essay by Janet Bayly, and critical essay by Justine Olsen, chronology, potter's marks.
The biographical essay by Janet Bayly puts Smíšek's work in the context of his life-story, formed by his childhood in Czechoslovakia, his experiences as a POW during World War Two, his move to New Zealand, and the range of international influences on his work.
Job Titles:
- Advisory Curator and Writer
Lynley Dodd's name is synonymous with that unkempt dog, Hairy Maclary. He's mischievous and devious, but loveable all the same. In fact, he's quite plain and as Dodd explains, he does quite ordinary things. It is this characteristic that has made Hairy Maclary such a success story. He's international, a megastar amongst pooches. He got a mention on Coronation Street the other month and Tony Blair once read him aloud on BBC television. Not bad for a backstreet mongrel.
But what do the public know about this quiet and humble Tauranga artist? Born Lynley Weeks in 1941, she grew up amongst the forests in and around Rotorua. Her father worked for the New Zealand Forest Service, her mother a homemaker in places so small that Dodd corrected me when I referred to them as small towns. The largest community consisted of ten houses.
Educated at Iwitahi School and then Tauranga College in the 1950s, Dodd was fortunate to be taught by Claudia Jarman (1908-86), an art teacher who could instill fear and artistic passion at the same time. Dodd, a private boarder for four of her secondary school years then returned home in 1958 to study her Fine Arts Preliminary through the New Zealand Correspondence School.
The following year, Dodd alongside Don Binney, Michael Smither, Suzanne Goldberg, Greer Twiss, Malcolm Warr and Graham Percy studied at Elam School of Fine Art, Auckland. A drawing completed on her first day, of a standing female classical plaster of Paris sculpture, is testimony to her ability at observational drawing. Dodd majored in sculpture, her teachers included: John Kavanagh, Robert Ellis, Peter Brown, Jim Turkington, Jim Allen, John Weeks and Louise Henderson. Peter Tomory, the Director of Auckland City Art Gallery, took Dodd and fellow students for History of Art and History of Architecture lessons. Like so many of her generation, Dodd went on to complete a year at Auckland Teachers' College, under the tutelage of Peter Smith. Drawings made while teacher training demonstrate her penchant at this early stage for narrative and storybook art.
After teaching at Queen Margaret College, Wellington, for five years, Dodd freelanced for the Correspondence School and Price Milburn, an educational publisher. Of the work she completed for the New Zealand Correspondence School, Dodd explains that often she was asked to mimic the style of another to continue an existing storyline in the same style. Not comfortable with this, Dodd set about to cement her own style. These early images already show what we now know as her stylistic traits - wispy linear renderings of busy animals. None of the originals survive. As Dodd tells, ‘original art was kept by the publishers in those days, no one asked for it back, it was made clear that they had purchased the work'.
For a period during the 1970s, as a personal amusement, Dodd drew several cartoons with degrees of success. Her 1974 cartoon, depicting devouring rodents, won first prize in the National Anti-Litter Campaign Council competition. Other cartoons considered subjects such as carless days and feminism.
In the mid 1970s Dodd illustrated her first book, My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes. Still in print four decades later, this book was a collaborative effort with Eve Sutton. Sutton was keen to write a book but was short of a subject. Dodd offered the suggestion of the family's cat whose weakness was hiding in boxes. Simple. This gem of a story was the beginning of something huge for Dodd. What followed were numerous books written and illustrated by her.
Hairy Maclary was created in Lower Hutt. Married with two young children, Dodd drew, on a pad of lined shopping paper, an airborne scraggly dog with the words written underneath:
Lynley Dodd: A Retrospective is a celebration of Dodd's work to date. The first work dates back to school days and the most recent, Shoo (2009). Dodd works completely by hand, in other words she does not use digital imagining to assist her in any way. Somewhat nervous about letting her drawings leave her hometown of Tauranga, the drawings on display have not been exhibited previously. Beautifully executed, they are magical pieces of illustration. Early examples show colour keys for the printer to follow. Different stages of her process are on exhibition including page layouts and notations with printing instructions.
With all these books under her belt Dodd admits writing and illustrating children's books is not easy. She manages about one a year and is quick to correct wannabe writers that it's an easy task. Dodd can agonize for days over getting four lines to rhyme. They have to rhyme, that's where the magic is. And it's the singsong nature of her books that make them stick in our minds even if we haven't read them for more than a decade. Dodd hasn't run out of ideas and says she'll continue to create her books as long as they keep on coming. Inspiration comes too from her favourite writers such as Quentin Blake and Dr Seuss.
Dodd has enjoyed various accolades having been the recipient of many awards. In 1984, 1986, 1988 and 1992 she won the Children's Picture Book of the Year Award. In 1999 Dodd was awarded the Margaret Mahy Medal. In 2005 Dodd was made the Children's Choice Winner - New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children for The Other Ark.
Awarded the Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2002, Dodd became Dame Lynley Dodd in 2009 as well as being awarded an honorary Doctorate from the University of Waikato. In the same year Dodd received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Auckland.
Yet for Dodd success is measured by the love children have for her books. Over 5 million copies of Hairy Maclary books alone have been printed and sold. Trademarked to protect his New Zealand identity, Hairy Maclary has been translated into several languages. This little dog is an international character but it is creator, Lynley Dodd who is the magic behind these stories and this exhibition.
Director Mark Roach has over 40 years of experience in professional art handling and exhibition touring. He has worked for several institutions including the NZ Academy of Fine Arts, the National Museum (Te Papa Tongarewa) and City Gallery, Wellington, where he was Exhibitions Manager for 11 years until 1997. At City Gallery his responsibilities included both registration and the management of exhibition implementation and logistics. Mark was integral to the development and management of nine national and international touring exhibitions. These included a major Tony Fomison retrospective, ‘Under Capricorn' to the Stedelijk Museum, ‘Cultural Safety' to Germany, a Rosemarie Trockel exhibition from Germany (and to MCA Sydney) and several trans-Tasman collaborations.
Mark's independent touring operation has led to successful partnerships with artists, sponsors, local and Trans-Tasman institutions. Exhibition Services has toured almost thirty exhibitions nationwide since 2001.
Megan Bowers Vette was raised in Whangarei, Northland. An influential photography and art teacher at high school sparked something of a curiosity in her, so much so she left high school on an early acceptance to Wellington's Massey University Bachelor of Photographic Design.
After spending some time abroad, Megan returned to Whangarei, where she met her husband, and decided to complete Northtec's Bachelor of Applied Art. Here she met New Zealand art photographer Ellie Smith, who became a long time mentor.
Since returning to New Zealand, Megan became involved in the local Northland art culture, having several solo exhibitions, as well as experimenting in sculptural photographic forms. This resulted in entering a solid resin and photographic breastplate into Wellington's World of Wearable Art Awards. "Betty Botanica" ended up spending three years at the Nelson WOW museum, as well as featuring in the "Bizarre Bra" best of publication.
After the birth of her son, Megan worked as an events and projects manager for the Old Library Arts Centre, and during that time set up The Shutter Room, a community photographic studio, gallery and gathering space that still goes strong today, and has a membership of over 100.
In 2014 Megan attended the scholarship program at Auckland's Kingsize Studios, and began taking on commercial photography roles in Auckland.
Megan started the Us project in 2016, starting with a Youtube video in which she shared a little of her own journey with sexual abuse, and called for others to take part in the project. Not knowing what the response would be, she was overwhelmed when she received over 200 replies to her video. Through her process, participants were whittled down to the number she had originally set for herself, exactly 50.
Born in Czechoslovakia in 1925, Mirek Smíšek (OBE) has forged a career as a remarkable New Zealand artist since arriving here in 1951. Mahara Gallery has produced the first ever full survey exhibition and accompanying publication considering Smíšek's life's work.
"Mahara Gallery's exhibition ‘Mirek Smíšek: 60 Years 60 Pots' is a stunning survey of our pioneering studio potter. Mirek's ceramics are gutsy, resolute and brilliantly muscular. In balancing his forms with innovative texture and limpid glazes he creates pots that actually breathe with life. His melding of ancient Asian and Continental ceramic traditions is a bravura affirmation of an artist's innate affection for the everyday. An important exhibition celebrating an exceptional talent". Ron Brownson, Senior Curator New Zealand and Pacific Art, Auckland Art Gallery, Toi o T?maki.
"Mirek was one of the earliest and a genuine pioneer of studio pottery in New Zealand who gave inspiration to us all. He needs to be at least as well known as the generation that followed him. ‘Mirek Smíšek: 60 Years 60 Pots' is a genuine revelation of his achievement". Hamish Keith, art writer and cultural commentator.
"Mirek Smíšek is one of our great treasures. In the 25 years I have spent working on the fringes - and at the heart - of the decorative arts, Mirek stands out as a maker of real stature, accomplishment and generosity. His personal story, his ‘attitude' as a maker, his innovative practice and his distinctive works deserve wider recognition and fuller appreciation". Tim Walker, past Director of The New Dowse, art consultant.
"In the pantheon of those other ‘core' post Second World War studio potters who laid the path for another way in studio based ceramics, Smíšek's career has, surprisingly, not yet received a full survey and analysis which records and recognizes his achievements. This unquestionably needs to happen to extend and balance the conversations about his part of the story". Louis le Vaillant, Director / Curator The Johnston Collection, Melbourne.
"For too long we have tended to concentrate on the work of just a few of our senior potters to the exclusion of others. This extremely valuable and comprehensive exhibition and its fine accompanying book achieve for Mirek Smíšek something that was due to him many years ago. His work always had a distinctive character which needs to be recognised again as interest in the history of New Zealand's studio pottery steadily continues to grow" Peter Shaw, curator, art historian and writer.
Mirek Smìšek: 60 Years 60 Pots is a stunning survey of our pioneering studio potter.
Job Titles:
- Director Tauranga Art Gallery
Peter Bush New Zealand's leading rugby photographer Peter Bush […]