On a cold and blustery Thursday a hardy bunch of Hibiscus Coast Artists members braved the cold to assemble at the Orewa Surf Club to visit the “ROBERTSON GIFT EXHIBITION” at the Auckland Art Gallery.
Fortunately we did not have to wait around in the cold for very long, as the minibus we hired from the RSA arrived well before our scheduled departure time. Brian, our cheery driver met and welcomed us aboard into the comfortable, warm bus, and quickly got us seated and ready to set off on our trip.
Surprisingly, traffic on the motorway was very light and we were able to travel along at a steady pace without any holdups while enjoying a view we wouldn’t normally see when driving ourselves. However, on reaching the inner city we were met by traffic cones, road works, detours, and lots of men in hard hats and highviz jackets, either sitting chatting, eating, our doing both, but not much actual work!!
Anyway, our knowledgeable driver swiftly negotiated his way around all obstacles and delivered us
to our destination, stopping right outside the main entrance doors, leaving us only a short distance
to walk across the street to the gallery perfect!
Once inside and booked in, a receptionist from the gallery led us to where the exhibition was being
shown, gave us a short talk about the exhibition, and then left us to wander around at our leisure. We arranged to meet for lunch at 12.30 pm, giving us ample time to wander around to look at the artworks.
THE ROBERTSON GIFT: Paths through Modernity
The donation by Josie and Julian Robertson comprises 15 works by influential modern European artists including Dali, Matisse and Picasso. Beginning with the suggestive nude bodies of the late 19th century and ending with a monumental colour field painting from the 1960s. The Robertson Gift: Paths through Modernity takes visitors on a journey through the major art movements of the modern era, including Impressionism, PostImpressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Surrealism, and postwar abstraction.Featuring 49 paintings, prints, drawings and sculpture, the exhibition includes visitor favourites from the permanent collection as well as loans and other important recent acquisitions, offering a broad survey of the best of late 19th – and early to mid 20th century international art.
Staying as a group to begin with we explored the wide selection of paintings, but soon found that the group split as someone would stop to admire a particular painting that had taken their interest and wanted to check it out more closely, while others moved on to look at other paintings. After seeing the full exhibition, we met up again and adjurned for a delicious lunch and a lively discussion on what we had seen.
The bus arrived shortly after finishing lunch, and picked us up at the gallery entrance once again for the return journey home. AN EXCELLENT DAY!!
Our photos from the day
