Art From the collection Named after Séraphine Louis (1864-1962), 120 paintings mounted by the Art a French naïve painter born a century earlier Gallery, with a 184-page catalogue featuring whose richly fantasised works were inspired by essays by Jon Bywater and Allan Smith, two staff her religious faith, Séraphine Pick was destined members from the Elam School of Fine Arts, to make art. where she once taught. Both parents were artists and they became the Séraphine Pick describes her art as illustrating caretakers of Moturoa in the Bay of Islands where the concept of memory. Untitled (the dress) 1995 brother Rua (also now a painter) was born in 1968. has a veritable Christmas carol’s worth of A hearing impairment that was not recognised until imagery – eleven jugs, seven beds, three paper she was seven years old led to Séraphine being bags (with eyes cut out for wearing over the head), classified as a disruptive child who got sent to draw and one large white dress. As in a counting at the back of the class by exasperated teachers. mnemonic, familiar parts can add up to a cryptic Inevitably, all this practice and a conducive family whole. There is a hint of McCahon about the environment led her to study painting at the vessels, perhaps a reference to his iconic 1948 where her father painting where the blessed virgin is compared to Beresford had graduated with his Diploma in Fine a jug of pure water, and a nod to Pick’s art school Arts the year before she was born. contemporary Shane Cotton in the elegant Finishing her BFA in 1987, she worked as a high distribution of multiple pots. Like Cotton, who school art teacher in Rangiora until a successful favoured burnt sienna in this period, Séraphine application to the Pick’s bed paintings were kept monochromatic, Foundation led to the art award which allowed with white shapes floating, ghost-like, out of the her to become a full-time painter in 1994. During darkness. These graffiti-covered inky backgrounds the following year in as the Rita Angus complemented the bituminous palette used by Cottage Artist-in-Residence, she experienced the then-boyfriend Peter Robinson, but the scary frock Séraphine Pick (b.1964) tipping point of commercial success when at centre is all her own. Part bridal gown, and Untitled (the dress) 1995 outlines of the second-hand iron hospital bed, part confirmation outfit, with the upper part of its Oil, pencil and crayon on canvas symbolic of her childhood bronchitis, surfaced in full gored skirt being studded with teats, the dress paintings like this one. Fifteen years later, her of this work’s title is both a threat and a promise work is the subject of a major retrospective of of motherhood to come. Linda Tyler

Eminent scholarly line-up The line-up of Hood and Seelye Fellows is just Director of the Social Exclusion Taskforce in the Justice: The Moral Life of Animals (2009), as illustrious as usual, giving opportunities for Cabinet Office of the UK. Animals at Play: Rules of the Game (2008) University of staff and students to She will share her experience, gained in the and Animals Matter: A Biologist Explains Why engage with top scholars from many parts of UK’s Sure Start programme, in integrating We Should Treat Animals With Compassion and the world. children’s services, including health, education Respect (Shambala, November 2007), as well as and social services. This will be of great benefit to the four-volume Encyclopedia of Human-Animal Seelye Charitable Trust Visiting Fellowships the Kaa Mataara Well Child Consortium, which Relations, Dr Becker is to be the keynote speaker Three Seelye Fellows have been confirmed, one aims to supply evidence-based child health at the Companion Animal Council for August this year and two for 2010. research and evaluations of programmes to conference. The first to arrive will be Clare Hansen, a senior policy advisers in government. John Van Maanen, professor of organisation professor of twentieth-century literature from the studies from the Massachusetts Institute of University of Southampton in the UK, who is to Hood Fellowships Technology in the US, will be hosted later this be hosted by the Liggins Institute and the Faculty Professor Gregory Claeys from the Department year by the Faculty of Business and Economics. of Arts. of History, Royal Holloway, University of London, Professor van Maanen is a world-class As a leading authority in the UK on the interplay will be hosted by the Faculty of Arts in August/ authority in the fields of socialisation, between literature and science/medicine, and on September. occupational conflicts, organisational careers popular science as a literary genre, she works at Professor Claeys is a leading scholar and the various ways occupational identities take the interface between science and arts. specialising in the history of nineteenth shape. He is also one of the discipline’s In the first two months of 2010 Professor and twentieth century political thought, who best-known methodologists, and widely hailed as Gretchen Hoffmann from the University of has published prolifically and is co-editor of the “father of organisational theory”. California, Santa Barbara in the United States will The Cambridge History of Nineteenth Century Christopher Rojek, Professor of Sociology and be hosted by the Faculty of Science. Political Thought and other standard reference Culture at Brunel University in the UK, will be An internationally recognised expert on the works. hosted later this year by the Faculties of Arts physiological effects of ocean acidification on Marc Bekoff, Emeritus Professor of the and Science. marine organisms, Professor Hoffman works on University of Colorado in the US and one of the Professor Rojek has made outstanding and the cutting edge of research relevant to world leaders in animal emotion and ethics, will internationally recognised contributions to the worldwide changes such as global warming. give a public lecture at The University of leisure field, the study of celebrity, cultural studies To be hosted by the Faculty of Medical and Auckland on 7 October. and social theory. Health Sciences in mid-2010 is Naomi Eisenstadt, Author (or co-author) of books such as Wild

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