A GENEROUS EYE
Works from the Wallace Arts Trust Collection
[5 July - 26 October, 2008]
This rich and sometimes quirky exhibition offers visitors an unparalleled opportunity to view works from The Wallace Arts Trust Collection. Outside of the major museum collections, the Wallace collection is one of New Zealand’s largest and most diverse.
A Generous Eye, Works from the Wallace Arts Trust Collection, is one of the first major public showing of works from the collection. From Toss Woollaston to Philip Trusttum, Scott Eady to Michael Parekowhai, Richard McWhannell and Frances Upritchard, and emerging artists like Tim Thatcher and Sara Hughes, winner of the 2005 Paramount Wallace Art Award, this exhibition provides a wonderful snapshot of one of the country’s most colourful and diverse collections of contemporary art.
What unites the works is the eye of James Wallace, one of New Zealand’s most active and generous arts philanthropists. And it’s an eye with a very inclusive and open sense of what is significant, interesting and worth preserving for the future.
In the mid-1960s Wallace, purchased his first art work.Today, as a result of his tenacity, vision, and an unusually brave and generous eye, his collection boasts over 4,000 art works by established and emerging artists.
The exhibition focuses on what drives James Wallace as a collector through a selection of works by these eight celebrated artists, who have consistently captured and held his imagination. When he first began collecting, Wallace’s original aim was to support emerging artists through patronage and promotion via exhibitions. In 1992 he transferred his personal Collection to a Charitable Trust which continued to acquire the work of artists as they emerged and matured, so creating a ‘diary collection’ and fascinating record of their developing careers. dealers.
TheNewDowse Director Tim Walker says ”In its scope The Wallace Collectionis very different from most museum and private collections. Sothis exhibition provides a fantastic chance to encounter some fresh dimensions of New Zealand art, through the eye of one of the country’s most active collectors”.
TheNewDowse is delighted to present this exhibition in the Wallace Arts Wing galleries of it’s recently redesigned building. The exhibition will also provide a fantastic introduction to the 17thAnnual Wallace Art Awards exhibition, which will open at TheNewDowse 11 October this year.