160-year-old artworks dusted off
A series of 160-year-old art capturing the early history of Southland and Otago will finally see the light of day, writes Jo McKenzie-McLean.
An album that has rarely seen the light of day sits on a table sprawled open. Small paper squares of pencil sketches fill the pages. A few metres from where the album lies open is an easel supporting a water colour of one of the sketches.
It is a John Turnbull Thomson 1857 painting of Nat Bates, a surveying colleague, who is trying to catch a woodhen.
On another easel a fierce-looking Ma¯ ori chief stares out from behind the glass. Thomas’ pencil sketch of Chief Reko from 1856 likewise glares out from the pages of the album.
Invercargill-born David Hall-Jones, Thomson’s great grandson, has gone to great lengths to keep the ‘‘priceless’’ 160-year-old art collection, including maps and journals, in the family.
Hall-Jones has bid against museums in auctions, rescued pieces from under blankets in garages, and spent thousands restoring damaged art and maps to prepare them for a first-time public viewing.
Thomson’s pencil field sketches, which later became paintings, capture the 19thcentury surveyor’s adventures as he journeyed into the Otago and Southland hinterland to map and survey the rugged and undiscovered terrain.
‘‘To me the field sketches are wonderful,’’ Hall-Jones said.
‘‘They are unique and made by a man in his notebook while he is travelling, capturing the hardships of being an explorer. He travels huge distances on horseback and is carrying nothing but a theodolite and bag of flour. Everything else they had to catch and eat off the land.
‘‘The tough, early guys, when they came through, they didn’t write about what they saw, or draw what they saw, so it is a special guy who has the ability to do all that. When a painting of Southland is 160-plus years old it is going right back to the earliest history of the province.’’
Thomson had been appointed government surveyor of Singapore in 1841 and emigrated to New Zealand in 1856. He took on the role of chief surveyor for the Otago province and was surveyor-general of New Zealand from 1876 to 1879.
One of his first tasks in New Zealand was to select a site and establish the layout of Invercargill.
‘‘I actually don’t think that Southlanders fully realise what a remarkable man we produced. He didn’t just explore Southland, he finished his years and died a Southlander.’’
In fact, Southland’s only mausoleum is for Thomson, located in Waikiwi’s St John’s Cemetery.
Thomson was responsible for the design, naming and construction of several notable engineering works including bridges, roads and hospitals in Singapore and southern New Zealand. His work included projects in Mt Earnslaw, Mt Aspiring, Lindis Pass, the towns of Twizel and Cardrona, and the St Bathans and Pisa Ranges.
‘‘I decided to name my Central Otago vineyard, Domaine Thomson Wines, after him because he was an extraordinary man who literally discovered and mapped the whole central part of Southland and Otago and he didn’t name anything after himself,’’ Hall-Jones said.
While keeping the collection ‘‘in the family’’, many other works had been donated by the Hall-Jones family to museums and to places offshore.
University of Otago Library Hocken Collections head curator, pictorial collections, Robyn Notman said the Hocken pictures collection had more than 200 works by Thomson, most of which were donated by the Hall-Jones family.
‘‘The tough, early guys, when they came through, they didn’t write about what they saw, or draw what they saw, so it is a special guy who has the ability to do all that. When a painting of Southland is 160-plus years old it is going right back to the earliest history of the province.’’ David Hall-Jones
‘‘Turnbull Thomson is considered a remarkable figure for the prodigious surveying work he completed in Otago and Southland and also because of the field book sketches he made while on his expeditions.
Later these sketches were used to complete water colour paintings chronicling his adventures as chief surveyor of Otago.
‘‘Both the sketches and the larger paintings are highly regarded by many, and collected by research collections such as the Hocken, as both items of history and as visual records, and for their pictorial value.’’
Thomson’s work was keenly sought after by collectors of early New Zealand art, books and documents, Notman said.
‘‘He also has an international following, especially in Singapore where he worked in the 1840s. His surveying work and the art he produced while there have led to him being regarded as something of a cultural treasure in Singapore.’’
The National Library of Singapore will present an exhibition next year called ‘The Early History of Singapore’. Thomson works from the Hocken collection will be sent to Singapore for that exhibition, she said.
In the meantime, Hall-Jones is organising his own exhibition for Thomson.
To honour his great-grandfather’s work, he has spent the past five years planning a tour of some of the collection.
‘‘The Thomson Art and Wine Tour is a celebration of the history and art of the south with good wine thrown in,’’ he said.
❚ Tour dates and venues: Fiordland Lodge on Tuesday, October 9; The Invercargill Club on Wednesday, October 10; The Rees Hotel on Thursday, October 11 and Edgewater Resort on Friday, October 12.