Auckland War Memorial Museum ~ Contemporary Printed Textiles ~ Patterns of Identity, Textiles in Aotearoa, New Zealand

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Auckland Museum Applied Arts Collection of Printed Textiles

Contemporary Printed Textiles

The Museum's Applied Arts printed textiles collection was built up in the late 1980s and during the 1990s.

The strategy was to document textile and dress history in 20th century New Zealand and to purchase contemporary as well as historical pieces.

In the early 1990s, Angela Lassig, currently History Curator at Te Papa, was actively involved in the acquisition of much of the Museum's textile contemporary collection.

'Catherine David
Designs'

'Dubbelt Morris'

Adrienne Foote
'Footeprints' / 'DNA'

Margaret Marr
'Whenua Fashions'

Mike Brookfield
'Virus'

Finn Morgan
'The Front Room'

'Workshop'

Angela worked with Justine Olsen, then Curator of Applied Arts, formulating an acquisitions policy which focused on Decorative Arts. Money came mainly from the Disney Art Trust. Aucklander Charles Edgar Disney was a passionate collector of European and Asian decorative arts and he endowed both Auckland Museum and Te Papa, enabling them to acquire significant items. This allowed the Museum to procure works from labels such as Footeprints, Virus and Whenua Fashions.

Lassig: "I believe it is very important for museums to systematically document our recent material culture history through acquisition of objects and related archives. I continue to do this at Te Papa and I must say the reception to this has been wonderful and will hopefully lead to some much needed publications to boost the literature for students."

In 1994 Louis le Vaillant became Curator- Applied Arts and has continued to encourage the development of the collection of printed textiles and is working with the research team to develop this project.