Dealer wants painting to stay in N.Z.

Press, 29 January 1986, Page 20

Dealer wants painting to stay in N.Z.

A Christchurch art dealer, Mr Colin Ritchie, is writing to big New Zealand companies to try to prevent a large New Zealand painting, by Louis James Steele and Kennett Watkins from leaving the country. Time is running out for Mr Ritchie.

A Melbourne couple who had bought the painting, were anxious to add it to their home collection if no New Zealand buyers came forward soon, he said.

“I’m trying to get some New Zealand companies to sponsor “The Burning of the Boyd” painted in 1890 and selling for $200,000,” he said. “In other countries sponsorship is a main means by which the people can hold on to and obtain good paintings. “Sponsoring involved

the purchase of art by one or more groups which then leased it to art galleries.

“‘The Burning of the Boyd’ came to light late last year in an Auckland home and the Melbourne couple gave him three months in which to sell it to a New Zealand buyer,” said Mr Ritchie. A vessel, The Boyd, is depicted anchored in Whangaroa Harbour about 1809. It is said to have been blown up when a Maori chief, Pepio, was trying out a flint which ignited gunpowder on board.

Several versions exist of the tale.

The English painter, Louis James Steele, was a friend and tutor of the well-known New Zealand painter, Charles Frederick Goldie. Together they painted “The Arrival of

the Maori in New Zealand.”

The asking price for ’ “The Burning of the 7 Boyd” was more than a public gallery in New t Zealand could raise at short notice, Mr Ritchie ’ said. ;

The curator of the • McDougall Art Gallery, ; Mr Neil Roberts, said re- ? cently that he would not regard its sale overseas as a big loss to New Zealand. - “It is very doubtful that ” a painting like this would be of immense interest to New Zealanders,” he said. - "Steele was an academic . artist and his kind of art has never found firm favour.

“The Burning of the Boyd” is a reasonable narrative painting but notsuch a major work as Walter Wright’s painting of the same topic held by the Auckland City Art Gallery.