Peter Tomory: the New Zealand Years, 1956-1968

Abstract

This thesis concerns Peter Tomory's nine years as Director of the Auckland City Art Gallery, between 1956 and 1964. The main theme that emerges in this study concerns the emphasis Tomory placed on professional practices, both at the Gallery and in the visual arts in New Zealand as a whole. The discussion is broken into four chapters. The first chapter sets the context for Tomory's directorship: his professional background, the New Zealand art world of the 1950s, and his initial vision for the Gallery. The second chapter is devoted to Tomory's development of the Gallery's permanent collection, and the third explores the ambitious programme of temporary exhibitions undertaken at the Gallery during his tenure. These broad topics are considered with reference to Tomory's policy statements, and through the close study of selected case studies. The final chapter examines the history of New Zealand art that Tomory developed over his twelve years in New Zealand (including both the texts he published while at the Gallery, and those he wrote while lecturing at the University of Auckland School of Fine Arts from 1965 to 1968) and his call for a more professional approach to art writing in this country. A bibliography of Tomory's published texts is included. A special effort is made in this study to consider Tomory's activities at the Gallery and his writing within their original historical and art-historical contexts, and also with reference to the way these actions and texts have been interpreted and employed by later commentators, especially post-nationalist critics. In this way, it is revealed that the history of New Zealand art formulated in the 1950s and 1960s was less homogenous, more complex and more contentious than it has more recently been portrayed.