Topic:
Made in New Zealand ( Te Papa exhibition 17 October 2001 - 13 April 2008)
Areta Wilkinson is a leading Maori jeweller. Through her work she explores ideas about adornment, wealth, and the preciousness of materials. She also examines local and global issues, including identity (particularly her Ngai Tahu identity), dislocation, memory, protection, and spirituality.
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There are few finer examples of colonial New Zealand silverware than this ewer and goblet set. Local silverwork of such quality and sophistication was rare, simply because few people in this country were wealthy enough to afford it.
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Blue Smoke goes drifting by into the deep blue sky
And when I think of home I sadly sigh
Oh I can see you there with loving tears in your eyes
As we fondly said our last goodbyes.
– from ‘Blue Smoke’ by Ruru Karaitiana
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In the early years of the twentieth century, new opportunities arose for women artists to develop and market their talents. Under the influence of the Arts and Crafts Movement, public taste had turned to fine handcrafted objects. Women, with their small ‘dainty’ fingers, were believed to be ideally equipped for a number of handcrafts, including metalwork.
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Body Raft 2000 is well on the way to becoming a furniture design classic. Its maker David Trubridge is one of a small number of New Zealand furniture designers, among them Humphrey Ikin, who are gaining international recognition.
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In the 1960s, many kiwi pop guitarists owned one of these – a Jansen electric guitar. Jansens were the first solid-body electric guitars to be mass-produced in this country, and they became firm favourites with our musicians.
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There are two known Maori tekoteko (carved figures) which depict Mary and Jesus. This one, held at Te Papa, is thought to have been carved around 1890. The second is in the Auckland Museum, and may have been carved several decades before that.
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This is one of only two paua surfboards in New Zealand. Brian O'Connor made them both. The surfboard in Te Papa is his second - the first hangs in his Kaikoura shop, Southern Paua Ltd. Its fame has spread, and many people go into the shop just to see it.
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This artwork by Donna Demente-Ogilvy and Jeff Mitchell pays tribute to the tradition of vaudeville theatre – variety shows that included singers, dancers, comedians, magicians, and circus-style performers. Until radio and film, vaudeville was the main popular entertainment here, as well as in Britain and the United States.
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This writing bureau was made in Auckland in 1867 by Anton Seuffert, a Bohemian cabinetmaker who lived and worked in the city from about 1860. It is known as 'the Hooker cabinet' and was presented as a gift to Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, the noted botanist and explorer, then director of Kew Gardens, in London.
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Wellington photographer James Bragge took this photograph on one of his trips into the Wairarapa between 1876 and 1877. It shows Eketahuna, a township developed and built by Scandinavians. For a time, part of it was called Mellemskov, meaning ‘heart of the forest’. Bragge published this photograph and many others as a sequence in an album entitled Wellington to the Wairarapa.
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