The Brett McDowell Gallery had a show Beauty and Desire in Edo Period Japan ending on June 20. It was reviewed in last Thursday's Otago Daily Times and will be over when you read this.
But there's also a roomful in the Dunedin Public Art Gallery's downstairs exhibition The Pleasure Principle which runs until September 22.
This exhibition not only has numerous attractive works, it also sheds light on the development of the gallery's collection. This is of particular interest to me because I had a hand in it in the 20 years I worked at the gallery.
Japanese art, and this particular form, Ukiyo-e or floating world pictures, doesn't appeal to everybody. I was talking about this with a friend who doesn't find these images particularly engaging. I think there are both genetic and cultural reasons for this.
Ukiyo-e particularly emphasise linearity rather than say, colour and I suspect some people's visual perception is more attuned to that than others. But also, for a Westerner, Japanese prints are exotic. To use an old-fashioned word they seem ''foreign'' in almost every respect.
As a child I lived for several years in Kuala Lumpur where there were Chinese people and Chinese objects. Japan is culturally distinct from China but their art and many other things are clearly related. I may be both genetically and culturally predisposed to find Ukiyo-e fascinating.
When I started at the gallery in 1980 it had very few Japanese prints.
There were some it had inherited from the Northcroft estate in 1970 and a few more bequeathed by Charles Brasch in 1973. Very few New Zealand galleries had any but there was a larger group in what was then the Auckland City Art Gallery.
The Dunedin director, Frank Dickinson, gave me some reference material and asked me to identify the artists and other details of the gallery's works.
It was a challenge but one I took on enthusiastically because the works were so attractive and the challenge very great. I neither speak nor read Japanese, so what was the meaning of the numerous inscriptions which these inscrutable but evocative images sported in profusion?
I think it took about two months to determine one of these prints was inscribed with the name of Hiroshige, a great master, and that it came from a series, The Stations of the Tokaido.
In retrospect I came to think Mr Dickinson had intended this as a test, one of a most welcome sort.
In 1982, the gallery received the transforming de Beer gift which included many more Japanese prints. There were also hand-annotated Sotheby's catalogues, mostly from the 1950s, indicating where many had been bought.
Much later, I came to know that this was mostly the work of Dora de Beer whose passion, discernment and generosity effected their transition to Dunedin. The gallery bought some works, on my recommendations, which only happened because the director supported them.
I also became acquainted with and tested by Mr F.C.W. Staub (Fred Staub), who had a remarkable collection, formerly, partly, the property of Francis Shurrock, the La Trobe scheme import to Christchurch. Rita Angus had known the collection and it had influenced her, so here was an unusual New Zealand connection.
Mr Staub had donated a triptych in 1975. He was cautious and concerned about the gallery's interest in and understanding of Ukiyo-e. These are sensible concerns for a potential benefactor and eventually I won his trust.
He deposited the whole Shurrock-Staub collection at the gallery and some of its gems are in the present show. Eishosai Choki's (active 1780-1800) Courtesan is a personal favourite.
Mr Staub died in 2012 and an exhibition wall panel says he bequeathed the collection to the gallery. I'm aware that was his intention although I'm not sure it has yet been formally achieved.
Certainly, the gallery's active interest in the material inspires other benefactors. For me a remarkable example of this was Andrew Munro's gift of his father's collection in 1993. Mr Munro was a young man.
His father had been in the ''J Force'', troops stationed in Japan after World War 2, which was also the source of the Northcroft bequest. Mr Munro's father was Ronald Stevens Munro and he had an almost complete set of Hokusai's 36 Views of Mount Fuji, including Under the wave.
There are actually 46 images in the series. The Munro suite lacked number 36, which, as it happened, the gallery had, thanks to Dora de Beer. There is a carefully enumerated display of the whole series on the walls. Curators are not the heroes here. But their efforts can make a difference.
Peter Entwisle is a Dunedin curator, historian and writer.
