A portrait of the late actor Sir Sam Neill hanging in Gore\u2019s Eastern Southland Gallery will stand as a lasting tribute to a man who cared deeply about the gallery and its future, curator Jim Geddes says.<\/p>\n
The painting, by Alan Pearson, was donated to the gallery by the actor himself and \u2018\u2018has always been a reminder of Sam\u2019s warmth, humour and connection to Gore\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n
Sir Sam, who died from pneumonia last Monday in Sydney at the age of 78, had a connection with the gallery as a \u2018\u2018treasured friend, supporter and benefactor\u2019\u2019 spanning nearly 25 years.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018We have lost a valued friend, and New Zealand has lost one of its most respected and beloved cultural figures,\u2019\u2019 Mr Geddes said.<\/p>\n
Over the past five years, Sir Sam made a \u2018\u2018significant contribution\u2019\u2019 to the gallery\u2019s permanent collection in both gifts and acquisitions, including notable works by New Zealand artists Jeffrey Harris and Nigel Brown.<\/p>\n
This year he donated a major work by artist Yuki Kihara, in memory of his mother.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018The image is somebody arriving from another country to New Zealand; the background is Port Chalmers, where his mother arrived from England,\u2019\u2019 Mr Geddes said.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018He always saw that work as being very personal to him, and it was a memorial to his mum, which is why he purchased it and then decided it needed to be in Gore \u2014 which is lovely, a lasting memorial,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Geddes described Sir Sam as an incredible patron of the arts.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018He\u2019s always been a big supporter of artists and writers, literature and music, but I think the visual arts was very important to him and that was evidenced by his personal collection which was an amazing body of work,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
They met in 2002 after the gallery opened its Ralph Hotere exhibition, being introduced by the artist himself and had kept in touch ever since, as Sir Sam would continue his support of the gallery.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018We worked a few years later on a couple of exhibitions he curated especially for us.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018One was contemporary Chinese art \u2014 he had a great interest in that.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018He also sourced artworks from other collections around the Queenstown area \u2014 he came down and did a floor talk for it, he was quite keen.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018Two or three years later we did an exhibition mostly from his own private collection.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The exhibition, \u2018\u2018Available Light\u2019\u2019, was of international photography, Mr Geddes said.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018He had a great interest in it and had quite a collection.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018He selected an exhibition specifically for us.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Mr Geddes said Sir Sam was a humble man who he had a great connection to through the gallery and their shared interests in the art world.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018He was really interested in the exhibitions we had, also the artists we worked with were artists he had a great interest in and often had in his collection.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018There was a mutual kind of understanding of the importance of visual arts.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Mr Geddes said Sir Sam appreciated being able to go to a small town like Gore and see works by major artists on display.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018He really liked and liked to support that notion it wasn\u2019t just for the cities: it was for everyone,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018His legacy for us is that he not only engaged with our programme and participated in it, but gifted us some remarkable works of art, significant works of art.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018We are profoundly grateful for everything he did for us,\u2019\u2019 Mr Geddes said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A portrait of the late actor Sir Sam Neill hanging in Gore\u2019s Eastern Southland Gallery will stand as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":815410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,64,63,460,134],"class_list":["post-815409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}