No Ngatiporou au. I tae mai ki konei tangi ai ki nga tangata nunui o era o nga ra - o te houkuratanga o te tangata. He hanga ahuareka ki te matakitaki te ata whakairo a te tohunga pakeha - ano kua ara katoa mai i te mate. Me whakawhetai tatou ki te tangata nana i pupuru nga ahua o o tatou kaumatua hei taonga mo enei ra e tu mai nei.
I am of the Ngati Porou tribe. I have come here to lament over the great men of other days, the people brought before us coloured as if they were living. Pleasing to the eye is the shadow-carving of the European artist – it is as if they had all arisen from the dead. Thankful are we to the man who has preserved these pictures of our elders, our old chiefs, as a treasure for the years that are to come. (Translation from Cowan)
Apirana T. Ngata
Lindauer Art Gallery Visitors' Book, 26 June 1901
The project
I te tau 2008, ka whiwhi a Toi o Tāmaki i tētahi pūtea mai i te Pūtea Mahi Tahi ki te Hapori a Te Tari Taiwhenua, hei hanga i te kaupapa noho ipurangi mō ngā Whakaahua Māori a Lindauer, tae atu ki tōna Pukapuka Manuhiri. Mā te pūtea nei e taea ai e Toi o Tāmaki tētahi pae tukutuku te hanga hei whakaatu i ngā whakaahua Māori a Gottfried Lindauer o te rautau 19 nō ngā kohinga o Aotearoa, me te Pukapuka Manuhiri o taua wā.
He kaupapa tēnei ka mahia ngātahitia e Toi o Tāmaki me Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori, ā ko Te Taura Whiri kei te patopato, kei te whakamāori i ngā kōrero ake o te Pukapuka Manuhiri o te Whakaaturanga Toi a Lindauer, mō te pae tukutuku hou. Ka noho mai anō ki te pae tukutuku tētahi wāhanga hei whakatakoto whakaaro mā te iwi mō te hunga i whakaahuatia.
Ko te whāinga o te pae tukutuku mō Lindauer ko te whakawātea i ngā whakaahua Māori a te tangata nei i te taha o ngā whakaaro i puta i tērā atu rautau, me ngā whakaaro o ēnei rā. Ka mahi tahi a Toi o Tāmaki ki ngā aitanga me te hapori whānui e takoto ai he putunga kōrero mō ngā whakaahua Māori a Lindauer, otirā e kitea ai te hira o te Kohinga a Partridge i Tāmaki-makau-rau. Ka whakaterea te pae tukutuku ā te Paengawhāwā Pipiri 2010, ā ko te tūmanako ka puta he painga ki ngā whakatipuranga katoa o Aotearoa, kia whakaakona ai, kia whakaputa whakaaro ai te hunga e kaingākau ana ki ngā mahi a Lindauer, otirā ki te ao Māori.
In 2008 the Gallery received a grant from the Department of Internal Affairs' Community Partnership Fund to embark on the Lindauer Māori Portraits and Visitors' Book Online Project. The grant enabled the Gallery to develop a website to highlight Gottfried Lindauer's 19th century portraits of Māori from New Zealand collections and the accompanying Visitors' Books from the period.
The Māori Language Commission Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori partnered with the Gallery on this project to provide language services to transcribe and translate the entries in the historic Lindauer Art Gallery Māori Visitors' Book for the new website. The site also provides an online forum for the sharing of information about the portrait sitters.
The goal of the Whakamīharo Lindauer Online kaupapa is to make accessible Lindauer's portraits of Māori, alongside both historic and contemporary responses to the portraits. The Gallery has worked collaboratively with descendants and the wider community to provide a central repository of information on Lindauer's Māori portraits, in particular the significance of Auckland's Partridge Collection. The Whakamīharo Lindauer Online website was launched in June 2010 and is intended to benefit all generations of New Zealanders and to actively educate and respond to the growing global interest in Lindauer and things Māori.
Awards
- Best Diversity Initiative 2010, Australia and New Zealand Internet Best Practice Awards
- Special Technology and Innovation Award, New Zealand Museum Awards 2011
Behind the Brush
In 2013 Auckland Art Gallery's portraits of Māori by Gottfried Lindauer were the subject of a documentary series screening on Māori Television called Behind the Brush. A second series of Behind the Brush screened in 2014.