2021 PROGRAMME OF EVENTS FOR MEMBERS

This list provides a summary of our upcoming events. Full details will be provided to all members as dates are confirmed via our e-newsletter. Further events and opportunities will be added to this list throughout the year.

An in-depth talk by Mary Kisler on Mackelvie’s purchase of Guido Reni’s St Sebastian, and the research Mary and Auckland Art Gallery Conservator Sarah Hillary undertook on the painting.
Join Curator Grace Lai at the Auckland War Memorial Museum for a tour of the refreshed Mackelvie Gallery, where new items previously in storage will be on display, and the old ‘cabinet of curiosity’ style of display is replaced with new arrangement which spotlights the wonderful details of each individual piece.
Join Georgia Prince at Auckland Central Library for an up-close encounter with A collection of roses from nature by Mary Lawrance, 1796-1799, purchased for Auckland Libraries in 2014 by the Mackelvie Trust.
Senior Curator of International Art, Dr Sophie Matthiesson will be presenting an online lecture series for members. View the full series details, now open for bookings, here.
Hear Mary Kisler talk about the Mackelvie works she researched at Villa I Tatti, Florence.
Experience the opportunity of visiting the Conservation Rooms at Auckland Art Gallery where Head Conservator Sarah Hillary is working on two significant Mackelvie Collection paintings.
Mary Kisler will also give a Heritage Talk in the Central Library as the 2020 Auckland Library Heritage Trust Scholar. View the details here.
There will be many Mackelvie Collection works in the upcoming permanent collection exhibitions at Auckland Art Gallery; All That Was Solid Melts, Romancing the Collection Manpower Myths of Masculinity (working title, Aug 2021), Colour (working title, Sept 2022) and Dr Sophie Matthiesson will be offering curatorial walkthroughs for our members. Learn more below.

JOIN the Mackelvie Society and receive full details by invitation to our Mackelvie Society Members.

MACKELVIE SOCIETY 2021 ONLINE LECTURE SERIES 2021.

Treasures of the Grand Tour: Italy through British Eyes

Join Senior Curator of International Art, Dr Sophie Matthiesson as she examines the ‘lure of Italy’ for travellers in the eighteenth century with a special focus on some of the trophies of Grand Tour collecting in Auckland’s Mackelvie collections.

Painting as Protest in the Prisons of the French Revolution

In this lecture Sophie Matthiesson reveals the extraordinary story behind a group of a well-known landscapes painted on plates in the Musée Carnavalet, Paris, by the renowned landscape and decorative artist Hubert Robert (1733 –1808) while imprisoned as a political suspect during the Terror.

This topic is drawn from her award-winning doctoral project, ‘The prison made object in the French Revolution’ (2016). It considers the role of Robert’s plates within the material environment of the political prison in the summer of 1794 and the hardships of collective lived experience. It makes use of emerging approaches to interpreting French eighteenth century culture, including recent studies on health and dining in the French Revolution, material culture (especially furniture), history of emotions and changing concepts of privacy and the self.

Monet’s Garden and the Japanese Bridge

Join Dr Sophie Matthiesson to hear the story behind the creation of Claude Monet’s extraordinary water gardens at Giverny and the evolution of his Japanese Bridge canvases, including an extraordinary late example on loan to the Auckland Art Gallery.

Senior Curator of International Art Sophie Matthiesson was curator of the exhibition Monet’s Garden at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2013.

Howard Hodgkin and Indian miniatures

In advance of an exhibition on the history and meanings of colour at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Senior Curator of International Art Sophie Matthiesson explores the exuberant paintings of British painter Howard Hodgkin through his relationship to India and its artistic traditions.

Ben Nicholson, Piet Mondrian and the quest for precision

This talk enters the artistic dialogue between Dutch abstract painter Piet Mondrian and his younger British colleague, Ben Nicholson that flourished in north London in late 1938, when the two friends worked in neighbouring studios as the clouds of World War II gathered.

Click here to view the full dates and details.

Images: Unknown,The Forum, Rome, micromosaic, 40 x 69 mm, Collection of the Mackelvie Trust Board, Auckland, 1885 (496) on loan to Auckland War Memorial Museum Tamaki Paenga Hira, 1932.233, 17756, M17; Claude Monet, Le pont japonais (Japanese Bridge) 1918-1924, oil on canvas, 1115 x 1005 mm, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, on loan from the collection of Hideaki Fukutake; Ben Nicholson, 1939, oil on canvas, 560 x 711 mm, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, on loan from the Thanksgiving Foundation, 2008; Howard Hodgkin, Paris, 2010-2016, oil on wood, 1416 x 1778 mm, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, on loan from Mark Schdroski and Edmond Chin.

CURATORIAL WALKTHROUGHS AT AUCKLAND ART GALLERY

All that was solid melts
5 June – 17 October 2021

All that was solid melts is a travel through time, ruins, and fragmentations in which life and humanity is once again reasserted, emerging as resilient and rejuvenated and set free from worry. With a strong emphasis on international contemporary art joined with historical works of significance All that was solid melts delivers a major exhibition for our audience who seek opportunities for contemplation in these times of apprehension and disquiet.

Curator: Juliana Engberg

Featuring Chartwell Collection works by the following artists: Marco Fusinato, Richard Lewer, Charlie Sofo

Romancing the Collection
From 14 August 2021

Romancing the Collection is a panoramic survey of artistic highlights and curiosities. Spanning several centuries, it shows European and Māori visions of place and people and winds through particular aesthetic clusters: portraiture, land and seascapes, still life, abstractions, as well as genre pictures and weather works. Taking its cue from Joshua Reynolds’ provocation – ‘What is a well-chosen collection of pictures, but walls hung ‘round with thoughts?’ – Romancing the Collection is designed to enchant visitors with the vast holdings of the Auckland Art Gallery.

Curators: Juliana Engberg, Julia Waite and Nigel Borell.

Featuring Chartwell Collection works by the following artists: Andrew Barber, Martin Basher, Elliot Collins, Phil Dadson, Alicia Frankovich, Melinda Harper, Chris Heaphy, Sara Hughes, Richard Killeen, Patrick Lundberg, Simon Morris, John Nixon, Jonathan Organ, Oliver Perkins, Michael Parekōwhai and Marie Shannon.

Dates and full details will be provided to members prior to each event.

Images; left, Paul Nash (English 1889 – 1946), Landscape of Bleached Objects, circa 1934 Oil on canvas, 620 x 747 mm, Mackelvie Trust Collection, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, purchased 1994, M1994/7; right, William Gosling (English 1824 – 1983), Studies of two heads of sheep, 1844-1883 Watercolour and pencil, 126 x 226 mm, Mackelvie Trust Collection, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of James Tannock Mackelvie, 1884, M1884/2/20. Curators of International Art, Auckland Art Gallery, left Dr Sophie Matthiesson, right, Emma Jameson