In 2023, the Wellington City Council executive leadership team recommended photography should be used as the standard approach for mayoral portraits for reasons of \u201ccost-effectiveness and timeliness\u201d.<\/p>\n
A statement from the council said the Whanau portrait resulted from a \u201cmisunderstanding\u201d of that 2023 direction during a period when the operational guidance had not yet been formalised.<\/p>\n
It said staff told the mayor\u2019s office a portrait could be commissioned when the office sought advice this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs part of the current review of the city art collection policy, council is reflecting this in the revised policy to ensure clarity and consistency going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whanau declined to comment to RNZ on the matter.<\/p>\n
Previous mayoral portraits included a $9000 painting of Fran Wilde and an $8500 painting of Mark Blumsky.<\/p>\n
The last mayor to have her portrait painted before Whanau\u2019s was Kerry Prendergast in 2011. The cost was not recorded.<\/p>\n
Celia Wade-Brown had a photographic portrait, which cost $2000; Justin Lester\u2019s portrait was a photo, which the council said had \u201cminimal cost\u201d; and at the time of reporting, a portrait of Andy Foster had not been completed because of his commitments as an MP.<\/p>\n
When Whanau unveiled her mayoral portrait, she said in a post on Instagram that it felt like a \u201clovely end\u201d to her time in the role with her \u201cmana intact\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will leave behind a progressive long-term plan for the next council.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whanau said she was appreciative of Roworth\u2019s talent.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis attention to detail is incredible, and I love how he captured the original brief – Mana serving diva.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2023, the Wellington City Council executive leadership team recommended photography should be used as the standard approach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[54104,19959,14054,22055,21168,111,43,139,6933,69,1118,20421,12663,20842,37410,131,61,35833,35834],"class_list":["post-67221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-54104","tag-error","tag-james","tag-leads","tag-mayoral","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nick","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-painted","tag-photo","tag-portrait","tag-rather","tag-than","tag-to","tag-tory","tag-whanau"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}