The Development of Te Papa's Historical Photography Collection

Tuhinga 20: 41–66 Copyright © Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (2009) Collecting photographs: The development of Te Papa’s historical photography collection Athol McCredie Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, PO Box 467, Wellington, New Zealand ([email protected]) ABSTRACT: This article examines the development of Te Papa’s historical photography collection, from its origins in the Colonial Museum to the present. In so doing, it outlines the collection’s contents and shows that the present-day shape of the collection bears the imprint of changing museology and evolving ideas about the role of photography in a museum. It covers the relatively passive collecting by founding director James Hector in the nineteenth century; the concerted effort to build a collection of ethnographic photographs under his successor, Augustus Hamilton; photographic activity by Museum staff during the twentieth century; and the acquisition of major collections from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Such collections include works by photographers like the Burton Brothers, Thomas Andrew, Leslie Adkin, Gordon H. Burt, Spencer Digby, Eric Lee-Johnson and Brian Brake, as well as those assembled by photo historians Hardwicke Knight and William Main. KEYWORDS: Colonial Museum, Dominion Museum, National Museum, Te Papa, photograph, collection, collecting, ethnographic, New Zealand, history, James Hector, Burton Brothers. One purpose of this exercise is simply to unravel some Introduction of the complexities of the collection by setting out what it The photography collection of the Museum of New Zealand actually holds and how material was acquired. This is no Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa) is large, containing about easy task, not only because of the large unregistered portion 153,300 registered photographs as well as many unregis - of the collection, but also because catalogue information on tered, and therefore uncounted, items.1 It also has a broad many items is minimal, with acquisition information before historical span, from daguerreotype photographs taken in the 1990s often very sparse indeed. Although negatives were the 1840s to work made today. However, any expectation usually registered after 1928, accession information was not arising from these facts that the collection is comprehensive included. Print material was barely recorded, if at all, through in representing the development of photographic practice, most of the twentieth century. In fact, better record-keeping or in documenting New Zealand’s history and its peoples, was often maintained in the nineteenth century, where would not be met. Indeed, in these terms it could be des - acquisitions were at least itemised in accession registers cribed as ‘lumpy’, with strengths in certain places but gaps and annual reports, though these still had little breakdown in others, and difficult to characterise in an easy summary. of detail. Accession number 1716, acquired in 1886, for Nevertheless, the aim of this article is to attempt, for the first example, is unhelpfully described in the register simply as time, such an overview. ‘Seven photo graphs of Lake District of New Zealand’ 42 Tuhinga, Number 20 (2009) (Colonial Museum 1887–1905). With hundreds of photo- Photographs collected as art by the National Art Gallery, graphs of South Island lakes in the collection today, it is and now by Te Papa, represent a small fraction of the total impossible to identify which, if any, this entry represents. figure of 153,300 collection photographs, though together Consequently, if this article seems at times dense with facts they almost certainly comprise the largest such collection in and figures, it is due to a desire to put on record what can be New Zealand. They number about 3755 prints, mostly by discovered with a little research: both to establish and clari- New Zealand photographers. They begin with pictorialist fy what is known, and to provide a basis for future, more in- images from the 1920s–60s, but largely consist of work made depth investigations. since the mid-1960s, when the notion of contem porary art The other intention of this overview is to examine the photography began to develop in this country. They also history of the collection’s development in order to under - include a small but significant group of inter national ( nearly stand why it has its present-day shape. This article is there- all North American) twentieth-century works collected by fore ordered chronologically by period of acquisition, not the National Art Gallery in the 1980s. Following the forma - by when the photographs were taken. While abandon- tion of Te Papa, and in line with Te Papa’s founding concept ing the familiar narrative of the history of New Zealand of ‘unified collections’, the ‘art photography’ of the National photography may feel disconcerting at times, it also enables Art Gallery was merged both in its storage and in the collec- a new perspective that foregrounds the processes and con - tion database with the National Museum’s historical docu- tingencies of a collection’s creation. These will include how mentary material.3 However, in 2008 the term ‘works of art’ the pho togra phy collection has been shaped by the evolving was selectively applied in the classi fication field of the museological approaches and philosophies of Te Papa and its collection database in order to allow art photography to be predecessor institutions, as well as by the changing at titudes conceptually separated from other forms of photo graphy. The towards photography and New Zealand history in the wider criteria for this classifica tion were intentionality and con- culture. The end result will reveal a different structure to the temporary context: whether the photographers saw their work collection than that created by an account of the ma terial as art, and whether others at the time did, as evidenced by the alone. Knowing how and why the collection was created, as sort of contexts in which it originally circulated (art galleries well as simply what is in it, should provide a more complete and art publications, for example). These measures are by basis for deciding on future collecting directions. no means always clear-cut though, especially with notions and practices of art changing over the last 150 or so years. A Reference numbers and measurements particularly blurred line exists today with contemporary All non-bibliographic references in the text refer to Te Papa work whose primary value for a museum is its documentary files or to collection items. These start with letters such as content, but which is created within the tradition of a MU (Museum Archives), AL (albums), O (prints) and MA_ photographic documentary aesthetic, and which may be (media assets), or others such as B, C or D, which refer to circulated in semi-art contexts and sold at art prices. various negative sizes. For brevity, leading zeros are omitted Despite some imprecision around the definition of an art from the six-place registration numbers. photograph, it can still be confidently stated that such photo- Negatives and prints have traditionally been classified in graphs have been well documented within the National Art standard sizes measured in inches, so these are used here, Gallery and Te Papa’s collection management systems: all and to avoid cluttering the text, metric conversions are given are registered and archivally housed, most are digitally in Note 2.2 imaged and, as noted above, all are now identifiable as such on the collection database. Given this comparatively easy access and small size of the collection relative to the re main - Defining the collection ing material, art photography is not addressed further in this Te Papa’s present photography collection has developed article. Nor is technology (such as cameras and equip ment) under three institutions: Te Papa itself (founded in 1992); covered, as this material is held within the history, rather and its two predecessors, the National Art Gallery (opened than the photography, collection. in 1936) and the National Museum (originally founded A further important distinction to make at the beginning as the Colonial Museum in 1865, and then named the is the difference between museum and collected photo g ra - Dominion Museum from 1907 to 1972). phy. The term ‘museum photography’ refers to images taken Collecting photographs: The development of Te Papa’s historical photography collection 43 Table 1 Collections and categories of photographic holdings at Te Papa. (Figures are as at March 2009 and, except for the history collection, have been rounded to the nearest 10 or 100.) Collected photographs Museum-generated photographs History Photography collection Collected Media assets Museum collection archives archives Art Documentary Digital Analogue 75 items 3760 items 149,540 items 1540 items 126,600 items 74,400 items 70 items registered registered registered registered ? items ? items ? items ? items unregistered unregistered unregistered unregistered by institutional staff. At the National (and probably photographic prints originally made from museum negatives Dominion) Museum, some staff kept personal files of pho - simply for reference by staff and external researchers, but tographs they had taken, while others had theirs added into which now often have historic and aesthetic value). These the central catalogue of photographs. The latter integration formerly sat outside any collection management system but always occurred with staff who had photographic duties, as are now being catalogued as

Load more