Worshipping Beauty in the South Seas

Abstract

This article analyses the wave of avant garde art movements that arrived on our shores in the late nineteenth century and its impact on applied art and the general lifestyles of artists and patrons in New Zealand. With particular reference to Kennett Watkins’ speech given at a meeting of the New Zealand Art Students’ Association’ in 1883, this account looks at the display of Māori objects in both public settings and in the privacy of the artist’s studio. It also acknowledges the role of illustrated magazines in promoting the public profile of professional artists working in Auckland at the turn of the twentieth century. Many patrons in the elite social circles of Auckland admired artists such as Charles F. Goldie for being arbiters of taste and hisbeautifully decorated studio both linked him to the ways European academic artists presented themselves, while using local artifacts to connect his practice to New Zealand. The dispersal of illustrated art magazines in New Zealand became a marketing tool for artists to promote their art practice but, most of all, elevate their status as members of the social elite in urban centres.