Starting an art School Blog #2: Opening of Whitecliffe Art School 1983
Greg outside Whitecliffe Art Galleries in 1983 getting a plaster casted sculpture ready to welcome students (this was sadly destroyed by a random hooligan)
Those that gathered included the following artists who went on to teach at Whitecliffe Art School,
- Agnes Wood – Painting (Figurative and landscape): Bio
- Jan Nigro - Painting (Figurative and landscape): Bio
- Nigel Brown – Painting
- John Horner – Painting
- Cynthia Taylor - Painting
- Pitt Henrich - Textiles
- Danielle Sperber - Batik
- Ken Cooke - Design
- Phillipa Karn - Photography
- Terry Young - Painting & drawing
- Hector Gremico - Bronze Casting
- Penny Otto - Children's classes
- Margaret Daly - Batik
- Francisco Carratala - Printmaking
- Mariette Van Zuydam - Printmaking
- Michael Sloane and David Reid - Bronze Casting
- Anne Robinson, Garry Nash and John Croucher - Glass Blowing
- Linley Adams - Glass Art
With the tutors on-board we hit go and rented the floor above the gallery at 381 Parnell Road using my savings from the Lorne Street Bureau business profits.
Excerpt from the first school catalogue/curriculum
Along with a few friends we then rolled up our sleeves and created the first location of the school, it included two studio spaces, an art shop and two offices. One office was for me, I was busy running the administration and one was for Greg so he had the space to take meetings and plan. Special friends who gave up their time to help us physically set up the first campus included Bob Skinner, Anne Wills, David Wills (who made the art desks), Sue and Pete Holloway, Karen Kay and Elaine Spearman. We held off the official opening till after the holidays to allow the part time potential students to have their children back at school or university. We started off focusing primarily on this student demographic as we felt it was underserved at the time and we had networks to spread the word.
To get the cashflow started and introduce the school we hosted outdoor landscaping classes while our “setup team” were pitching in back at campus in Parnell. We also held several weeklong landscape painting classes with John Horner and Greg as the tutors. Each day was a different location including Cornwall Park, St Heliers, Western Springs, and the Parnell Rose Gardens. At lunch time a Barbeque would be set up for all to enjoy. These early classes had around 8 or 9 students which had enrolled through our mailing list with the art gallery and friends. Some of the early students included Deirdre Hattrick-Smith, Marjorie Parkyn, Joy Black and Hillary Cleary.
Greg and Sir Dove-Myer Robinson (former Mayor of Auckland) at the official opening of Whitecliffe Art School – March 1983
We were lucky enough to have Sir Dove-Myer Robinson (the former Mayor of Auckland) officially open the school with a small ribbon cutting ceremony.
Sue Holloway in the foreground and me with our guests in the background enjoying a few drinks and nibbles at the opening of the school
Nola Skinner and some other guests at the opening of the school
First term started straight away after the opening ceremony in March, the terms followed the secondary schools calendar. Our plan was to start with the basic introductory classes for the first term and then progress by introducing stage 2 and 3 of each discipline in the following terms. Classes included:
- Landscape and still life painting and drawing by a range of different tutors throughout the week
- Textile design by Pitt Henrich, stitching and embroidery
- Creative photography with darkroom, field and theoretical experience. This was initially held at Phillap Karn’s personal studio at her house.
- Bronze casting Michael Sloane and David Reid, these were also taught off-site at the artist studios.
- Blown glass by Anne Robinson, Garry Nash and John Croucher
- Film making by Hector Gremico, we had purchased our own equipment for this so were able to deliver at the Art School
- Leadlight stained glass taught by Linley Adams
- Glass craft taught by Ken Cooke
- Life and still life symbolic painting by Nigel Brown
- Print Making by Nigel Brown and Greg
- Painting and collage by Jan Nigro
- Design by Ken Cooke
- Painting with watercolors by Agnes Wood
- Batik by Daniel Sperber
- Life & Portrait by Marianne Muggeridge
- Advanced portraiture by Greg
- Drawing & Mixed media by Margaret Daly
- Drawing for beginnings by Terry Young
- Outdoor landscape by Greg Whitecliffe
- Painting for beginners by Francisco Carratala
- Color woodblock printing by Mariette Van Zuydam
- Jewelry Introduction by Jim Robbie
- Advanced life classes by Greg
Excerpt from the school catalogue/curriculum
In the evenings we held general art supplementary to UE and Bursary Art by John Horner and Margaret Daly.
In the weekends and holidays we held children’s art classes and more drawing/painting classes by taught by Greg
While classes were happening, Greg was still running Whitecliffe Galleries downstairs with fortnightly exhibitions and writing for Art News, a small art publication at the time. In exchange for writing stories in the arts we got to promote the school. Greg was an excellent writer and really enjoyed contributing to the stories of artists and their works. This is one of the reasons that I created the Art Writing prize in association with Auckland Art Gallery.
During the holidays we called students to reconfirm their enrolments as initially it was a part time school. By the end of the first year, the administration overhead and the early successes drove us to create our first group of Diplomas in the various disciplines. This meant that students would be enrolling for a longer period and also started to attract younger people to the programmes.
By 1984 we introduced new classes at various locations into the programme to cater for the numbers around the inner city, these included
- Print making at a lithographic studio in Epsom which we created
- Print making at another studio in Balmoral
I spent a lot of time driving students around to the classes across town to save them money and time.
By 1985 it was evident that we needed a larger space. Again, we assembled our closest advisors to discuss our next progressive plan.
In the next blog I will tell you about how we secured the location for the next phase of Whitecliffe College's life in Grafton, Auckland.