Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery

A Whanganui biography

By Martin Edmond

Massey University Press

RRP $65.00

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Whanganui’s Serjeant Gallery has just reopened after having been closed for ten years with  an opening season entitled “Nō Konei | From Here” (Until 11 May 2025). The exhibition features over 200 artworks, spanning four centuries of European and New Zealand art history. Filling the gallery’s newly expanded exhibition spaces, works range from traditional gilt-framed paintings to contemporary practice in a variety of media.

Coinciding with the opening is the publication of “Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery” which tells the gallery’s 100-year history.

Written by Martin Edmond the book charts the Sarjeant Gallery’s early years and its development as a collecting and exhibiting institution that is now recognised as one of the major New Zealand’s art galleries.

The gallery  which is one of the most elegant and imposing buildings in the country is located at a central point in the city and has been of significance to the development of the city.

Henry Sarjeant whom the gallery is named after had lived in the area since the 1860’s and had  a lifelong interest in the arts, visiting the major galleries of Europe during a number of trips abroad. When he died in 1912, aged 82, he left property valued at £30,000 in trust to the Wanganui Borough Council for the purpose of building and maintaining an art gallery. The design of the gallery was won by Dunedin architect Edmund Anscombe and the building was constructed in the shape of a Greek Cross and  faced with Oamaru stone.

The Governor General, the earl of Liverpool, laid the foundation stone on 20 September 1917, and on 6 September 1919 the Prime Minister, W. F. Massey, officially opened the gallery.

While the gallery was the dream of Henry Serjeant Martin Edmond notes that it was Sergeant’s wife, Ellen who was the driving force after his death.

“Ellen Sarjeant was a remarkable woman and without her we probably wouldn’t have the gallery we do today. She was almost 40 years younger than her first husband, Henry Sarjeant, the benefactor of the gallery; the eldest daughter of one of his close friends. It would be interesting to have some insight into the dynamics of their marriage but they were very discreet. It’s possible that he had the money and she had everything else: the drive and enthusiasm, the artistic insight, the business sense and the administrative skills. He would have seen this and I suspect their partnership was intended to transform the city the way the Sarjeant has. Ellen was among those who oversaw the building of the gallery; she was, with her second husband, John Neame, the initiator of its first acquisitions, both in New Zealand and overseas.”

The importance of Bill Millbank (Director 1978 – 2006) in developing the galleries status in his time at the gallery was a period when the institution became an important institution in developing a major programme as well as curating exhibition of national importance.

Edmond notes that the while Millbank initially had no real interest in the arts this changed with his travels overseas.

“crisscrossing Europe in a Kombi van, visiting galleries and churches, looking at art ‘all the time’. There was a revelation in Toledo, in front of an El Greco, when Milbank understood a hitherto obscure (to him) connection between these works and a painting he had admired on his weekly visits to the Sarjeant. He wondered, naively, if the Sarjeant painting was in fact by El Greco. It turned out to be the aforementioned Gethsemane by New Zealand artist Lois White.

Among the significant exhibitions that Millbank was responsible for was the first exhibition of “The Given as an Art-Political Statement” by Billy Apple in 1979. The exhibition included a controversial intervention by Apple, where he removed the sculpture “The Wrestlers” (Raffaello Romanelli) from its prominent position and replaced it with photographs of the sculpture on the surrounding walls.

He also initiated Te Ao Marama: Seven Māori Artists which showcased contemporary Māori art and travelled to Sydney.

Millbank was also responsible for the development of the Tylee Cottage residency which has seen over sixty artists make use of the programme including Laurence Aberhart, Mervyn Williams, Bronwynne Cornish, Adrian Jackman, Anne Noble  and Jade Townsend

Edmond also writes of the pivotal role of Gordon Brown  who was the first full time director between 1974 and  1977).

The book has the subtitle of “A Whanganui biography” and Edmond rounds out both history of the gallery and its place in the city’s history as well as the directors of the institution. He includes many incidental aspects of the city’s history both of artistic as well as general interest.

He includes the D’Arcy Cresswell drama where the poet was shot and injured  by  the  Mayor Charles Mackay who had made homosexual advances towards him in the mayoral office. The incident brought Mackay’s 11-year career as mayor of Whanganui and as a major supporter of the gallery to a shocking end.

While the galleries new extension has been many years in planning and execution it was hampered early on by the mayor Michale Laws. He had Goebbels-like approach to culture, seeing the “arts community consisting mainly as bludgers and elitists”. His attempts to stop the building was a low point in the city’ s artistic history.

Threaded through the gallery’s history are accounts of the developing collection including donations, European buying sprees and local acquisitions. Over its 100 year the  gallery has acquired a number of important works as well as establishing a fine collection of local artists including Edith Collier.

It is a compelling read full of lively, far sighted and dubious characters along with interesting accounts of the development of a public institution.

The book is generously illustrated with many works from the Sarjeant’s rich, varied and important collection. It also provides a full list of all the staff since the gallery’ inception as well as all the artists who have been Tylee Cottage residents.