Sale of paintings

Press, 26 December 1984, Page 11

Sale of paintings

Thirty drawings by Christchurch artist Olivia Spencer-Bower will be exhibited and sold in February. The money raised from the sale will go to the Olivia Spencer-Bower Foundation, set up after the artist’s death in July 1982 to support artists. The sale of property and art works will provide the funds for the foundation, which hopes to grant its first fellowship in 1985 or 1986.

• Bill Cumming, the curator of the Olivia SpencerBower collection kept in the Robert McDougall Art Gallery, said works from the collection would be sold over a period of time to

build up the foundation’s resources.

The painter’s collection included a substantial body of her own drawings and watercolours and works by other New Zealand artists, including Hotere, McCahon, Angus, Stoddart and Smither.

The latter will be auctioned in April at the C.S.A. Gallery. The works from the drawings exhibition, to be staged at the McDougall Gallery, will also be for sale at the C.S.A. Gallery. A few drawings and watercolours by the artist were sent to the Peter Webb Gallery in Auckland this month to be sold. An excellent drawing by the

artist sold for $7OO and a watercolour of Queenstown for $l9OO. Mr Cumming said the foundation would make grants as the funds built up but the intention was to make an annual award to an artist.

The foundation was anxious to preserve the artist’s integrity in the sale of her works and to fulfil her wish to help artists. Olivia Spencer-Bower was a significant New Zealand artist who should be well represented in galleries, he said.

There would be several exhibitions of her work, some in other centres, he said.