GRIP, Research Abroad The Beginning

University of Auckland - New Zealand

For the entirety of the program, I will be helping Professor Linda Tyler of the University of Auckland and the Auckland Art Gallery prepare an upcoming exhibition on Lucy Wertheim and the one-hundred-some works she donated to the Gallery, which makes up one of the largest donations in its history. Presently, I’m working on creating labels for each artwork and, once finished, I will work on an essay detailing the life of Wertheim as a female gallerist in the modern art world of England. This particular exhibition is quite exciting as it will act almost as a resurgence of local knowledge of her since the last time the institution has showcased her collection was back in the 20th century. So far, it has been really interesting to see how far Wertheim’s influence spread across the modernist artistic circles of the United Kingdom, especially in terms of her financial support for these artists, who otherwise would not have been able to continue their careers in the field. Equally compelling is the research I get to do on these lesser-known artists. My favorite periods are Modern and Contemporary, so it is really exciting to work on these artists and learn more about them since they are not internationally recognized as others and would not have been discussed in a usual class setting, even though I have been finding that their contributions are just as important in pushing the modernist field.

This project has been very enlightening for me in terms of gaining new research methods. As stated above, these artists I am focusing on are not as famous as, say Pablo Picasso or Jackson Pollock, and, as such, do not have as many papers or articles written about them, leaving me with a dearth of information that, at first, made it hard for me to talk about their works. Luckily, though, I was able to work through this little obstacle by branching out of my traditional searching on Franklin libraries to other resources, especially those provided to me by the University of Auckland, and, so far, I have been able to extrapolate enough information to write 100+ word labels about artworks that are often made in the same style. Of course, Professor Tyler, who I have been working with, has been a great aid in helping me discover these new resources and has shown me the different ways in which I can successfully integrate that information into my own ideas for labels.