The Fletcher Trust Collection was founded sixty years ago, in 1962, as the corporate art collection for Fletcher Holdings. Today, it is one of the country’s most prestigious private art collections. 

 

The collection is perhaps best known for its landscapes and works of formal abstraction, but portraits and other figure-based pictures form a lively core, exuding countless stories. Gathered Voices showcases some especially fine examples drawn from a range of time periods and reflecting a range of perspectives.

 

A few works express perspectives that are misguided, even offensive. Yet they retain value, as embodiments of ancestors, or as markers of a complex past with lasting effects. The earliest pieces by date are ‘colonial’ portraits. But there are works that speak to older pūrākau and deeper histories, enfolding tūpuna or atua whose roots long precede the arrival of tauiwi in Aotearoa.

 

The compact nature of this exhibition means that some collection ‘favourites’ have been left out. The select pieces on display express important themes running through many of the figure-based works in the Fletcher Trust Collection: family, place, culture, identity, ethics.

 

Curated by Francis McWhannell, curator of the Fletcher Trust Collection.

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