VICTORIAN MEN: JAMES TANNOCK MACKELVIE AND ALFRED BUCKLAND
Join our speakers Grace Lai and Boris Bogdanovic in conversation with Dr Linda Tyler as they discuss the lives and collections of Victorian business men and collectors, James Tannock Mackelvie and Alfred Buckland.
James Tannock Mackelvie left Glasgow, Scotland for Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand in 1865 to work for Brown Campbell and Company. Despite arriving during a period of economic depression, Mackelvie, a shrewd investor, made his fortune in six short years before returning to London in 1871. Ever grateful to the city that helped build his wealth, as well as being a keen collector, Mackelvie routinely sent art and objects to Auckland where he intended it to form a teaching collection for the people of Auckland. Today, his collection is part of three major institutions: Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and Auckland Library Ngā Pātaka Kōrero o Tāmaki Makaurau.
Alfred Buckland was born at Newton Abbot, England, and arrived in Auckland on the Sir Edward Paget on 18 December 1850. In 1855 he joined Joseph Newman in livestock auctioneering. Their business centred on sale yards at Newmarket and in 1858 Buckland conducted the first public wool sale in New Zealand. Today his name lives on in Auckland’s Bucklands Beach and through his family home Highwic, a Victorian mansion in Newmarket, built in 1862, and cared for by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.
Join our speakers Grace Lai, Curator Applied Arts & Design, Auckland Museum, and Boris Bogdanovic, Assets Manager Northern, Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga as they discuss the lives of these Victorian collectors and the influence of their collections. The discussion will be chaired by Associate Professor Dr Linda Tyler, from the University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau.
The event is hosted in Highwic's 19th-century drawing room. You are welcome to enjoy Highwic's house and gardens after the curator talk.
SUN 8 SEP, 10AM
HIGHWIC, 40 GILLIES AVE NEWMARKET, AUCKLAND
MACKELVIE SOCIETY MEMBERS & MUSEUM MEMBERS | $35
We have reserved limited space for our Mackelvie Society members. Please book to your secure your seat.
About the speakers
Dr Linda Tyler
Linda Tyler has taught art history at Canterbury, Victoria, Waikato and Auckland universities, and design history at Unitec and Otago Polytechnic, and been an art curator at Waikato Museum, the Hocken Library and Gus Fisher Gallery. She wrote her MA thesis on the Austrian architect Ernst Plischke and her PhD on the Colonial Museum botanist and draughtsman John Buchanan. Since 2018 she has been convenor of the Museums and Cultural Heritage programme at the University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau.
Grace Lai
Guided by curiosity, Grace Lai is an art historian and curator interested in uncovering stories held by objects overlooked or dismissed by history. Positioning material culture as a decoder of the immaterial, her research seeks to untangle the complex web of connections, histories, and social structures inherited by objects in the hopes of addressing issues that remain relevant not only to museums and their collections but also to society today. Grace has published extensively on contemporary craft, focusing on studio glass, jewellery, textiles, and surface design.
Currently, Grace is the Curator of Applied Arts & Design at Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum where she leads the exhibition, development, and research of a nationally significant archive of craft from Aotearoa New Zealand and abroad.
Boris Bogdanovic
Born in Croatia, Boris grew up in Aotearoa NZ and graduated from the University of Auckland's School of Architecture in 2007. Starting work in the United Kingdom, Boris concentrated on the Victorian-age and has focused his career on the design history, buildings, and cities of the 19th-century in Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Boris has presented research at the universities of Petra, Brighton, Auckland, and Unitec. He has lectured at the universities of Kabul, German Jordanian, NYU (Dubai) and Sorbonne (Abu Dhabi) and received study awards from the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, The Victorian Society and the Attingham Trust.
Boris Bogdanovic B.A.S/B.Arch (Hons) SPAB 2011 IHBC ICOMOS NZ is Heritage Asset Manager Northern / Kaiwhakahaere Atiha at Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga