Margaret Hay Fundraising Auction

Margaret Louise Hay was a Napier local – her focus was family and community, and she spent all of her life in the city her father was so involved in rebuilding after the earthquake of 1931. After a long, active life Margaret sadly passed away last year.

Margaret was a keen painter, and at her bequest a collection of her work is to be sold to benefit Creative Arts Napier, which is a registered charity. The team at CAN are thrilled and honoured that Margaret wished to benefit the organisation in this way, so we have decided to make a real event of it!

Come along and view Margaret’s work in the Main Gallery on Friday 13 March 5-7pm, and bid on the one you would like to own. All of the paintings represent a precious slice of Napier’s history. Light refreshments will be served, and well known Napier local Brayden Coldicott has kindly agreed to be our Auctioneer for the evening.

All welcome!

NB: A small selection of paintings have been reserved at special request for friends of Margaret to purchase. These will not feature in the Auction.

The exhibition of Margaret’s paintings will be on display in the Main Gallery until Thursday 26 March, when sold works can be collected.

About Margaret:
Margaret Louise Hay was born in Napier on 24 February 1928, only daughter of JA Louis Hay, architect and Margaret (Peggy) Ross Hay (nee McPherson). Her intellectually disabled brother Roddy was four years older.

Her first years were full of fun and family outings – picnics, boating adventures – along with entertaining and musical parties at home. Extended family came and went, as did friends from near and far.

In February 1931, the Napier earthquake turned their lives upside down. Margaret was nearly three. The chimney of their home in Milton Terrace collapsed; Peggy was badly injured, and had to have her right leg amputated. Roddy’s disability worsened.

Margaret’s father wasn’t home much after that, being so consumed with the rebuilding of Napier. Consequently it was Peggy and her sisters (Margaret’s aunts Nan and Jessie) and their mother (‘Granny’ Margaret McPherson) whom Margaret knew best while growing up.

On leaving school at the end of 1945, Margaret worked in her father’s office in Hershell Street. After his death from asthma in February 1948, Margaret became the family’s sole provider. She was nineteen.

During the 1960s Margaret had tuition two evenings a week with Peter Brown, a New Zealand artist who had studied at the Slade in London and with Augustus John. She was a member of the Napier Art Club for at least 20 years (1970s – 90s approx.) She served on the committee and was an active club member, encouraging new painters.

Margaret greatly enjoyed her art, and was always thrilled when one of her paintings sold, ‘not for the money, but because people liked one enough to buy it’.

She sometimes worked from photographs, (as for Inner Harbour) or books, but more often went out to capture land or seascapes. She was also fond of painting fruit and flowers, and her family home and garden in Milton Terrace provided options for all seasons.

Margaret did things ‘her way’. She regularly donated to many charities and helped family whom she though had had a ‘rum deal’. She also ensured that her father’s architectural history was reserved, donating many items to the Napier Museum.

Despite dementia in her final years, her stoic strong-mindedness was never far away. On making her a fresh cuppa one morning, I asked her if she’d like me to hold the saucer. Her reply:

‘No! That would be giving in – to everything!’

Margaret died in December 2019, aged 91. She had lived in Milton Terrace, in the home where she was born, for 90 of those years. – Ruth Monro, Margaret’s cousin