LAUNCHING OF GOLD PRINTS

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 9, Issue 2, 1 October 1976, Page 51

LAUNCHING OF GOLD PRINTS

The usual reception held by the Endowment Trust to launch each new issue of prints took place on 17 September. The guest speaker at the pre-view was the Chief of Defence Staff, Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Webb, K.8.E., C. 8., a particularly appropriate choice in that Charles Emilius Gold, C. 8., assumed command of the armed forces in New Zealand in 1858 and, ten years later, also attained the rank of Lieutenant-General. Sir Richard, however, denied any artistic ability on his own part, in response to a suggestion that last century this had been a useful attribute in gaining general rank. General Webb spoke of Gold both as a soldier and as an artist: in the former capacity his ability has been much criticised, both in his own time and subsequently, although Professor Sinclair among other critics admits that Gold’s position was not an easy one. Gold’s paternalistic attitude to his young married officers was exemplified by his admonishing them they should not be imprudent in action but should remember that they were family men.

Introducing General Webb, Sir Alister Mclntosh, K.C.M.G., chairman of the National Library Trustees and of the Alexander Turnbull Library Endowment Trust, noted the Library’s ‘double responsibility of preserving its collections and making them available to the people of New Zealand. Inevitably there are conflicts between preservation and use and the conflict is possibly sharpest over the collection of original paintings and drawings. Our major climatic blessings are the worst enemies of watercolour paintings. The moisture encourages fungal growth, the foxing so noticeable on books and pictures on paper, and the hard sunlight bleaches. Even in the carefully controlled conditions in the Library it is unwise to expose watercolour paintings to artificial light for extended periods of time.’ Sir Alister continued that one solution to making at least some of the important pictorial records of

our history available to a wide range of New Zealanders is the publication of colour prints. To date the Endowment Trust has published 14 sets of Turnbull Library Prints presenting 48 separate pictures, and indeed well over 60 if one includes illustrations on folders and text sheets. Thus the Turnbull, ‘the research arm of the National Library, is playing its part in extending the services of the National Library out into the libraries, offices and homes of New Zealand.’ Sir Alister remarked upon the number of colonels who, serving in this country last century, were artists of some competence, and who all subsequently became generals—Gold, Hamley, McCleverty, Robley, Warre and Williams, all of whom are well represented in the Turnbull art collections, both recording the New Zealand Wars and in other fields. Nor should Majors Bridge, Heaphy and von Tempsky be forgotten.

The prints are now on sale at the Library. The first, painted in 1849, shows a glimpse of Wellington Harbour beyond a huge tree in heavy bush; the second, a few scattered houses in New Plymouth in 1860, with a cloud-wreathed Mount Egmont as backdrop; the third is a beautiful study of a tree-fern surrounded by other ferns. As is now usual, a fourth colour print is reproduced, full size and also suitable for framing, on the folder that is supplied with the set of three prints: it shows the army tents of the 65th Regiment camped at Waitara in Taranaki in 1860. The text sheet of biographical and background notes on Gold and his Royal Tigers—with an appreciation of his artistic ability, by Janet Paul—this time carries three black and white illustrations, of a landslip on the Hutt Road caused by the earthquake in January 1855, of ferns in the forest 1851, and of the scene of the Wairau incident of 1843.

Friends are asked to note that rising production costs and increased postal charges have necessitated a higher price for this year’s print issue. Single prints in the Gold Prints sell at $4 each; the set of three, with the folder bearing a fourth print, is sl2. But the usual discount of 10 percent to Friends still applies, the cost to Friends thus reducing to $3.60 for single prints, SIO.BO the set. Illustrations of the three prints are given on a supplement to the illustrated catalogue of prints, and other Library publications, available free on request. The Library’s post office box number has been changed and is now: P.O. Box 12-349, Wellington.