Peter McLeavey

It is with sadness that we learnt today of the passing of Peter McLeavey, a great friend to New Zealand’s artists and a wonderful advocate for art.

Staff of Auckland Art Gallery have long had an enduring association with Peter and his much admired Wellington gallery on the first floor of 147 Cuba Street. Our thoughts go to his family and friends and we send them our sincere condolences.

Over the next week the E.H.McCormick Research Library (open Monday to Saturday 1 to 5pm) will have available Luit Bieringa’s documentary portrait The Man in the Hat and Jill Trevelyan’s prize-winning biography Peter McLeavey: the Life and Times of a New Zealand Art Dealer. Both film and book portray many of the qualities which made Peter a unique presence in New Zealand’s art scene for five decades.

Through the agency of NZ On Screen you can watch Luit Bieringa’s film online:
http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/the-man-in-the-hat-2009

Peter mentioned to me on a number of occasions that the Auckland Art Gallery had been one of his gallery’s key clients. Nearly 100 artworks have entered this Gallery’s collection through Peter’s insight.

Our most recent purchase from Peter was in 2013 of Ava Seymour’s unforgettable Health, Happiness and Housing photo collages. In 1989 he enabled two of Charles Tole’s most important early paintings to enter Auckland's public art collection. In 2007 he ensured that this Gallery could acquire W.D. Hammond’s painting Giant Eagle.  There are many other instances of Peter working strategically to assist the growth of public art collections.

Every art acquisition made from Peter’s gallery could have a story related by him attached to it. Peter had a joint focus – to profile New Zealand's artists and to foster art collections. He worked closely with his clients and could instantly recall their purchases in detail. Peter's complete dedication to local artists was a trait that many people have commented upon and admired.

Numerous New Zealand artists have been mentored and nurtured by the expertise and long-term support of Peter McLeavey. His entire life was one of committed advocacy for our painters, sculptors, photographers and printmakers.

Image credit:
Marti Friedlander
Peter McLeavey 1981

gelatin silver print

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of Marti Friedlander, 

with assistance from the Elise Mourant Bequest, 2001

E H McCormick Research Library Summer Art Archive Internship

This summer I was fortunate enough to be selected as the inaugural E H McCormick Research Library summer Archive intern. I was given the choice of a number of archives that needed accessioning, finally settling on the IKON gallery archive.

The IKON gallery, originally known as ‘The Gallery’ was active in Auckland from 1960-1965, run by Don Wood and Frank Lowe. It was one of the first dealer galleries in New Zealand and exhibited works by a number of leading artists – Colin McCahon, Ralph Hotere, Pat Hanly, Don Binney, and Toss Woollaston to name but a few.

The archive itself was varied and consisted of some 12 boxes, in a rather jumbled state. The archive contained everything from newspaper clippings, business receipts, sketches and plans, to personal correspondence between the gallery owners and artists. The sheer quantity of documents was initially overwhelming, especially considering the large amount of metal staples, pins, and paperclips that needed removing and replacing- finally being replaced with more than 800 plastic paper clips. This seemed like an insurmountable challenge! Fortunately for me, I had the invaluable guidance and patience of librarian and archivist Caroline McBride to help me find the way, and together we devised a plan of attack.

We defined categories for each of the types of documents and paraphernalia found in the archive, and I proceeded to work through the boxes identifying what they contained. It was important to decide if the boxes or files within them were organised in any particular way – known as original order. On ascertaining that there was initially an alphabetical order, it was decided to proceed with that, with some small adjustments.

Correspondence was sorted A-Z by artist, then the large quantity of business receipts and documents went into general folders, newspapers were put together, with any notable clippings placed into the A-Z correspondence files. Interestingly, there is also a full card index detailing all purchases and works left with the gallery during its run. This will make for detailed provenance information for many important artworks by leading New Zealand artists.

Due to the huge number of documents this took a significant amount of time, but the end results were well worth the hard work! The IKON gallery archive will be an incredible resource for researchers and the gallery. This is due to its fantastic primary material, with hand written correspondence from major New Zealand artists, and provenance information in the card index.

– Cecilia Lynch, E H McCormick Research Library Summer Intern