Summer Scenes and Flowers: The Beginnings of the New Zealand Christmas Card, 1880-1882

Abstract

n October 1883, just as New Zealanders began the annual ritual of buying seasonal tokens of esteem to post overseas, Dunedin’s Evening Star, quoting local photographers the Burton Brothers, posed a question that had exercised immigrants for some years. “Does it not seem folly,” the paper asked “to send back to the Old Country Christmas cards which were manufactured there and exported hither?”1 This was a rhetorical question and the Evening Star went on to respond that “a few years since we should have replied ‘No’; but in view of the experiences of the last two years we say most decidedly, ‘Yes, it is folly.’” The newspaper, clearly, saw the period of 1881 and 1882 as pivotal in the establishment of a small but important industry, the New Zealand Christmas card business.2 My paper examines why these years are significant and what lies behind the debate, identifying a number of early cards and documenting the accompanying developments, primarily via the lens of newspaper advertising. The 1880s Christmas card may not have been an industry on the scale of lamb, but what it lacked in bulk it made up for in symbolism, providing a discrete window into the web of entangled emotional, commercial and design imperatives that attended the way immigrants imagined and constructed this important cultural celebration.

A Matter of Taste: the Fate of the Archdeacon Smythe Collection of British Watercolours in New Zealand

“…Displaced geographically, and all too often relegated for much of the latter twentieth century to storage as either outmoded, irrelevant, or archaic, they too deserve their place in the sun." 25 I agree that such collections can contribute to a deeper history of art and collecting in New Zealand by, among other things, exposing shifting policies of acquisition and tastes. At the symposium New Zealand Art under Erasure, held at City Gallery Wellington on 30 June 2018, chief curator Robert Leonard agreed that a wider and deeper history of New Zealand art institutions and collecting should be considered when looking at New Zealand art and art history.…”

“…In Works of Splendor and Imagination: The Exhibition Watercolor, 1770-1870, art historian Jane Bayard claims that watercolour painting in Britain was at the forefront of contemporary art during the nineteenth century. She argues that "the rapid advances in 25 Kisler,Angels,19. technique and the possibility of further innovation made watercolour seem more modern and forward-looking than oil." 27 Despite this, when I first started mentioning British watercolours as the topic of my research, I was met with rather disparaging responses, like "that's quite old fashioned, isn't it?"…”

“…However, I am now too old to collect & there is no room in this house for a collection." 25 He was 88 years old at this stage, so the excitement and effort involved in collecting might have been too much for him. From 1953 onwards, he never mentions any new acquisitions in his letters, only commenting on selling and gifting his collection.…”

“…27 24 He was already selling parts of his collection in England during the 1930s, thus he must have been actively buying and selling at the same time. 25 Smythe to DPAG, 11 May 1961, DCCA: Box 11, DPAG 15/22. Smythe retired in 1946 andmoved to Elfinsward in Hayward's Heath shortly afterwards.…”

“…During these tours he produced numerous watercolours which he then turned into published series of lithographs that won him wide popularity and a considerable fortune. 25 One of these watercolours is Ras-El-Abiad, Coast of Syria (1839, Te Papa) [Fig. 4], which shows an impressive coastline with surging water.…”