Barbara Brooke

Elsie Barbara Brooke was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, the daughter of Alexander and Mary Anne Brown. In 1945, she married André Brooke, an artist who had emigrated to New Zealand from Hungary.{{Cite journal |date=Winter 1088 |title=Andre Brooke (1909–1988) |journal=Art New Zealand |volume=47}} In the 1960s she began to be known as Barbara Brooke.

In 1959, the Brookes opened what would be the third contemporary art gallery in New Zealand.{{Cite web |last=McCredie |first=Athol |title=Going Public: New Zealand Art Museums in the 1970s |url=https://mro.massey.ac.nz/bitstreams/fd0ed05b-1d5b-44aa-a99c-efff93f5e155/download |access-date=6 August 2024 |website=Massey University}} Gallery 91 was located at 91A Cashel Street{{Cite news |date=22 January 1959 |title=New Art Gallery Opening Soon in City |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=7}} and for almost a year became a centre for contemporary art in Christchurch. Along with exhibitions, the Gallery 91 exhibition programme included discussions, demonstrations and poetry evenings.{{Cite book |last=Brown |first=Gordon H. |title=New Zealand Painting 1940 -1960: Conformity and Dissension |publisher=Queen Elizabeth II Art Council of New Zealand |year=1981 |location=Wellington |pages=52}} To cater for these activities the Gallery's hours were long: 9.30 am – 5.30 pm and 7pm – 11pm on weekdays and on Saturday from 7 pm – 11 pm.{{Cite news |date=26 January 1959 |title=Classifieds |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=1}} Home and Building magazine described the gallery as, “a stylish, large and open exhibition space, Gallery 91 seemed to declare that New Zealand art was something of value and that its practitioners should be respected.{{Cite journal |date=September 1959 |title=Gallery 91 |journal=Home and Building |pages=61}} The emphasis was on younger artists and the programme included loan exhibitions from the Auckland City Art Gallery including Contemporary New Zealand Drawings.{{Cite web |title=Drawings |url=https://www.aucklandartgallery.com/page/contemporary-new-zealand-drawings |access-date=6 August 2024 |website=Auckland Art Gallery}}

Among the many exhibitions shown, one stands out: the largest exhibition of Colin McCahon's paintings shown up to that time in Christchurch.{{Cite news |date=9 October 1959 |title=Large Exhibition Of Recent Paintings By Colin McCahon |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19591009.2.138?end_date=01-01-1960&items_per_page=10&query=%22McCahon%22&snippet=true&start_date=01-01-1959 |access-date=6 August 2024 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=13}} Art critic and McCahon biographer Peter Simpson has named it, ‘the most remarkable exhibition of new paintings McCahon ever held’.{{Cite book |last=Simpson |first=Peter |title=Colin McCahon There is Only One Direction Vol. 1 1919–1959 I |publisher=Auckland University Press |year=2019 |isbn= |pages=287}} Christchurch City Librarian and art collector Ron O’Reilly started a campaign to buy the painting Tomorrow will be the same but not as this is to gift to the Robert McDougall Art Gallery.{{Cite book |last=Simpson |first=Peter |title=Colin McCahon: there is only one direction |date=2019 |publisher=Auckland University Press |isbn=978-1-86940-895-4 |location=Auckland |pages=32}} This first attempt failed but the idea was successfully revived three years later.{{Cite news |date=20 November 1962 |title=Public Appeal For Picture |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19591009.2.138?end_date=01-01-1960&items_per_page=10&query=%22McCahon%22&snippet=true&start_date=01-01-1959 |access-date=6 August 2024 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=10}} Lack of sustained sales forced the Brookes to close Gallery 91 after ten months.{{Cite news |date=13 November 1959 |title=Gallery 91 to Close |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=15}}

In January 1960, André and Barbara Brooke were jointly appointed as Secretary Manager of the Canterbury Society of Arts.{{Cite news |date=13 November 1959 |title=Arts Society Secretary |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=15}} The reaction from the artworld was enthusiastic, “one-man shows and other exhibitions by small groups of artists will inevitably result in a change of emphasis”.{{Cite news |last=Kenny |first=Nelson |date=13 April 1960 |title=Society of Arts: Changes Noted At Exhibition |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=14}} The couple brought to the CSA's Canterbury Society of Arts Durham Street premises a range of younger artists and initiated high-profile exhibitions such as the Hay's Limited Art Competition (later known as the Hay's Art Prize).{{Cite web |title=Hay's Prize |url=https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/media/uploads/2017_11/HaysPrize1960.pdf |access-date=6 August 2024}} André Brooke resigned from the position in 1963 and Barbara was appointed as the sole Secretary Manager of the Canterbury Society of Arts.{{Cite news |date=19 March 1964 |title=Art Must Relate to the Universe |work=The Auckland Star}} She remained in the job for the next two years with early work on planning for the construction of a new building for the CSA.{{Cite news |date=15 May 1965 |title=An Interior Impression of a Tentative Plan for the New Gallery of the Canterbury Society of Arts Prepared by the Architects (Messrs Minson And Henninghansen.) |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=1}}

After leaving the CSA, in 1966 Barbara Brooke was employed part-time at Caxton Press to edit the New Zealand Local Government Magazine.{{Cite news |date=14 November 1972 |title=Ward system publicity |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=6}} The following year, at the suggestion of the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council, Leo Bensemann and Brooke started up a new magazine for contemporary art, Ascent. For the first two issues{{Cite web |title=Ascent 1 |url=https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/media/uploads/2012_05/Ascent01_1.pdf |access-date=6 August 2024}} Brooke is listed as ‘assistant editor’ but by issue three she is noted as co-editor alongside Bensemann.{{Cite web |title=Ascent 3 |url=https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/media/uploads/2019_02/Ascent03OPT.pdf |access-date=6 August 2024 |website=Christchurch Art Gallery}} Ross Fraser reviewed the first issue in Landfall. Push the writers “extend” them with critical writers who also provide feedback – positive or otherwise – to our artists.{{Cite journal |last=Fraser |first=Ross |date=1968 |title=Ascent |journal=Landfall |volume=22 |issue=1 |pages=106–107}}{{Cite news |date=2 November 1968 |title=Periodical |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=4}}{{Cite news |date=2 May 1970 |title=Response to Frances Hodgkins |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=4}} Five issues of Ascent were published before it closed in 1969. The following October Barbara Brooke and André Brooke were divorced and he left New Zealand to live in Tahiti.{{Cite news |date=29 October 1970 |title=Supreme Court Divorce Decrees Granted |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=13}}

In 1972, Brooke helped open Christchurch's first craft market with Judy Gifford and others.{{Cite news |date=11 November 1972 |title=New craft market |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19721111.2.116?end_date=31-12-1980&items_per_page=10&page=2&query=%22Mollett+Street+Market%2c%22&snippet=true&start_date=01-01-1971 |access-date=6 August 2024 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=14}} The Mollet Street Market was located at 601B Colombo Street and described itself as a ‘craft-display workshop with gear on sale to the public.’{{Cite news |date=25 November 1972 |title=Advertisements Column |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=25}} The success of the market was over-shadowed when the Retail Shop Assistants’ Union took Brooke and her co-workers to court on the grounds of staff having to work in the week-ends”{{Cite news |date=19 July 1973 |title=Mollett St Market Opposition by Union |work=The Press (Christchurch)}} Brooke helped start a partition{{Cite news |date=16 July 1973 |title=Petition on Market |work=The Press (Christchurch)}} to allow the market to continue and eventually managed win an exemption via the courts.{{Cite news |date=16 October 1973 |title=Market to be open to public |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19721111.2.116?end_date=31-12-1980&items_per_page=10&page=2&query=%22Mollett+Street+Market%2c%22&snippet=true&start_date=01-01-1971 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=16}} Brooke also demonstrated her engagement in local politics when she stood for and was appointed to the Christchurch Transport Board where she served from 1975 to 1978.{{Cite news |date=30 October 1974 |title=Public Notices |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=31}}

Brooke's return to the contemporary art dealer business came in 1975 when she and her friend Judith Gifford opened the Brooke Gifford Gallery at 112 Manchester Street.{{Cite news |date=20 May 1975 |title=New Gallery |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=10}} One of the first exhibitions was in co-operation with Barry Lett Galleries in Auckland and included Ralph Hotere and Patrick Hanly. Many of the exhibitions during Brooke's time at the gallery demonstrated her determination to bring the latest of contemporary art practice to Christchurch. A significant example was a 1979 Billy Apple exhibition in which the work consisted of renovating the gallery's print room and then curating the first exhibition in the renovated space.{{Cite web |title=Billy Apple 'Censure Realised Brooke Gifford Gallery |url=https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/collection/2010-007a-c/billy-apple/censure-realised-brookegifford-gallery-christchurc |access-date=6 August 2024 |website=Christchurch Art Gallery}} The Christchurch artist Neil Dawson would have his first solo exhibition House Alterations in the gallery in 1978.{{Cite book |last=Dawson |first=Neil |title=Neil Dawson: site works :1981–1989 |date=1989 |publisher=National Art Gallery |others=National Art Gallery (N.Z.) |isbn=978-0-908843-02-2 |location=Wellington, N.Z |pages=78}}

After five years working at the gallery Brooke became ill and died in March 1980.

Petrena Fishburn Barbara Brooke: A Trend-Setting Art Professional in New Zealand 1959-1980. This thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts in Art History at the University of Canterbury 2014. Fishburn's thesis covers all aspects of Brooke's working career in detail. You can [https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/server/api/core/bitstreams/2aa4b295-4ed3-4d40-9480-6a8323cf58a4/content download it here].

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Category:1925 births

Category:1980 deaths

Category:New Zealand art dealers

Category:New Zealand publishers (people)

Category:People from Christchurch