Dealers in art and memory

Janne Land, Mark Hutchins, Catherine Scollay, Andrew Jensen, Gregory Flint, Murray Pillar, Christopher Moore, Grodentz, John Heald.

Add to the list Alison Bartley, who after 30 years as a gallerist closes Bartley and Company Art at the end of the month.

While she will continue online in some capacity, her represented artists have lost an agent and a space to exhibit and sell their work. Annual solo shows are their bread and butter. History shows plenty will struggle to show in Pōneke again. Such is the peculiar dedication an art dealer has to championing the extraordinary.

The gallery opened in Ghuznee St in 2009, but previously Alison had run Bartley Nees with Tim Nees. Before that, Nees’ New Work Studio.

Being a gallerist is challenging. So let’s acknowledge those who’ve gone before – many who also endured for years. It’s easy to shake one’s head and complain about the state of the world, but it’s often been hard. A Facebook hive mind mission brought forth 40 private galleries that have been and gone (not including the many artist run and public gallery spaces).

Antipodes, 331⁄ 3, Neut, Southern Cross, Idiom, Diversions, Last Decade, Mi Galaxi, 30 Upstairs and the Taj Mahal (the former grand Kent Terrace’s toilets).

Strange poetry in those names. There’s also been a noble string of private photography galleries, including Photoforum and Exposures. Photospace remains open 25 years on. 331⁄

3 Gallery lived on for many years with a gargantuan giant painted logo on Martin Square, off Taranaki St. There have been different models: 30 Upstairs and Potocki Paterson, for example, or women’s spaces like the Women’s Gallery and Ngā Tamahine Marama.

Elva Bett, Helen Hitchings, The Young, Louise Beale, Danae Mossman, Mary Newton, Kay Roberts.

A lot of women. Which may say much about the way labour has been divided, but also about empathy, care and courage to step outside boxes. New Zealand’s first dealer gallery is credited as Hitchings’, opened in 1949. In the 1960s Bett was a director at the Centre Gallery before in 1968 opening BettDuncan Gallery with Catherine Duncan at 147 Cuba St (where Peter McLeavey and a handful of others have run). Duncan left in 1976, and from 1980 Louise Beale made the business her own until 1991.

Remarkable runs serving artists. Jenny Nelligan at Bowen is now in her 41st year, Marcia Page her 37th. Galerie Legard was established by Janne Land in 1980, running a gallery under her own name until 2008. She was succeeded by Kay Roberts in 1981 who ran Brooker until 1999.

As an art critic who started in the early 90s I owe these smart businesswomen much for both their kindness and critical rigour. That’s what artists relied on, and it never ceases to amaze how many outstanding artists only get wall space in a small private gallery here. Painter Tony Lane commented to me that, over 30 years from the mid 70s, he exhibited with Bett, McLeavey, Southern Cross, Scollay, Land, Hutchins and Jensen Gallery.

There’s always been an Auckland-Wellington axis. Jensen shifted his business to Tāmaki Makaurau and Sydney, showing many fine minimalist painters, many internationals (a rare thing). We’ve seen few of them since. Another contemporary pioneer, Flint ran a gallery here before shifting north. He passed in 2010.

There have been other dark moments. Gallerist Brian Queenin died far too young having kept a great gallery afloat in the late 1990s after working at Brooker. Delia Grace died in 2016. The less said about Aaron Laurence the better.

There have also been a few incursions from the north, but tellingly none have lasted. Gow Langsford, Ferner Galleries, and more recently Hopkinson Mossman. Danae Mossman took it under her sole name in 2019 and did beautiful work for a year. They had created an impressive purpose built space upstairs in Garrett St – now occupied by Bartley and Company Art.

Bartley tells me the building is being converted into apartments. Gallery Envy6011 will stay in the front of the space for a year or so until building commences.