Sarjeant Gallery
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The Sarjeant Art Gallery is located in Queens Park, Wanganui. The Gallery was built as the result of a bequest to the city by Henry Sarjeant in 1912 and has significant historic and architectural value.
The services are recognised as the best in a New Zealand provincial gallery, which enhances Wanganui as a place to live and visit. The collection development began in 1901 and in the first few decades the focus was on 19th and early 20th century British and European works. Since the late 1920s the main focus for collection development has been New Zealand art, both historical and contemporary. Particular foci are on the photographic medium, wooden sculpture and developing comprehensive collections of work by selected artists, including a comprehensive collection of the artist Edith Collier.
History of the gallery
The building's design was settled through a competitive process in 1915.
The assessor for the competition was Samuel Hurst Seager, a prominent architect and lecturer in architecture at the Canterbury College School of Art. In 1912 Hurst Seager had published an article on "The Lighting of Picture Galleries and Museums" in the Royal Institute of British Architects, in which he advocated a "Top-Side-Lighted" method of lighting galleries. This system, written into the competition specifications, has since been a key element in the Sarjeant's considerable reputation.
Donald Hosie, age 21, the articled pupil of the important Dunedin-based architect Edmund Anscombe, was announced winner in 1916. Just a year later Hosie died in the trenches at Passchendaele. In 1917 construction of the building began, and in September 1919 the Sarjeant Gallery was opened by the Prime Minister, William Massey. The building is in the form of a Greek cross with a central dome. The style is classical with restrained decoration. Both form and style are enhanced by the external cladding of cream Oamaru stone.
The interior is similarly classical and restrained, with off-white walls and polished natural wood floors. The Sarjeant Gallery has a Category 1 listing, the highest possible under the New Zealand Historic Places Trust Act of 1993, in recognition of 'such architectural quality that its permanent preservation is regarded as essential'.
Henry Sarjeant (1830-1912)
Henry Sarjeant (1830-1912) immigrated to New Zealand from England about 1860 and settled in the Wanganui Region. After his death, Henry's wife Ellen consolidated her husband's interest in the arts which had been generously provided for in his Will. This document also outlined his intention for quality:
" It is my desire that works of art shall be purchased or acquired on account of their intrinsic value as work of high art only and not because they are specimens of local or colonial art so that the said gallery shall be furnished with works of the highest art in all branches as a means of inspiration for ourselves and those who come after us."
Henry Sarjeant's ability to grasp opportunity in a new land engendered a prosperity that enabled him to facilitate his vision for a culturally invigorating art museum and collection, an institution of national significance throughout the 20th century and one commemorating his name throughout New Zealand and beyond.
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