Rita Angus to Dick Frizzell: The Kelliher Art Collection

The Kelliher Art Collection includes 100 paintings, the majority of which are New Zealand landscapes that won prizes or awards in the Kelliher Art Competition, held most years between 1956 and 1977.

The purpose of the competition was to support the painting of ‘realistic and traditional’ landscapes of New Zealand and to encourage artists to record a New Zealand identity that fitted with Sir Henry Kelliher’s idea of the kind of country and people that made New Zealand. Since 2000 the Trustees have added to this ‘historical’ collection by purchasing more recent landscape paintings by major New Zealand artists, consistent with the Kelliher ethos, to make the collection more comprehensive and extend it into the 21st century.

This presentation from the Kelliher Art Trust Collection, only the second time that an exhibition of Kelliher paintings has been shown in the South Island, represents both strands of the collection. A selection of classic Kelliher landscapes features paintings by Peter McIntyre and Austen Deans, while recent acquisitions include some of the best-known artists of the era such as Toss Woollaston, Michael Smither, Dick Frizzell and Stanley Palmer.

Image: Richard McWhannell, Zephyr through Toetoe, 2005, oil on canvas