Melvin Day: From Cubism to Classicism, June 2023

MELVIN DAY: From Cubism to Classicism

Championing Tradition from a Modernist Perspective

Photo: Trevor Ulyatt

MELVIN DAY: From Cubism to Classicism

Championing Tradition from a Modernist Perspective

Melvin

07.06.23 — 24.06.23

23 Marion Street Te Aro Wellington 6011

+64 4 555 6011

Monday to Friday | 10am — 5pm

Saturday | 11am — 3pm

Mark Hutchins-Pond Specialist, Art mark@webbs.co.nz

+64 22 095 5610

Karen Rigby Business Manager karen@webbs.co.nz

+64 22 344 5610

webbs.co.nz

Day: From Cubism to Classicism Championing Tradition from a Modernist Perspective

Over the course of seven and a half decades of artistic practice, Melvin Day produced a distinctive and historically significant body of work.

MELVIN DAY: from Cubism to Classism–Celebrating Tradition from a Modernist Perspective , brings together a remarkable collection of works that track the artist’s development and shifts in focus throughout his long career.

The contents of this exhibition have primarily been sourced from the holdings of the Oroya & Melvin Day Charitable Trust, which was established to manage the combined estates of the artist and his wife, Oroya.

Most of these works have seldom been seen outside the artist’s studio and a few have never previously been publicly exhibited. Webb’s is delighted to partner the Oroya & Melvin Day Charitable Trust in offering viewers a rare glimpse into the artist’s personal holdings of his work that served as his self-referential archive throughout his life.

As the exhibition testifies, Day was a draftsman and painter of exceptional vision and sophisticated technical ability whose value as one of our nation’s preeminent artists has only recently begun to be realised.

Born in Hamilton in 1923, Melvin Day was a radical, but also a great believer in tradition. His early Cubist paintings of the 1950s testify to his importance, along with John Weeks, Louise Henderson, and Charles Tole, as one of our earliest experimental Cubist artists. These initial expressions of his search for pictorial structure laid the foundations for Day’s modernist abstractions of the late 60s and 70s based on renaissance proportions, and the monumental, faceted Wellington landscapes of the 80s for which he became best known. When Melvin Day died in 2016, the contents of his studio, along with his financial assets, were put into a charitable trust. In 2019 the trust initiated a grants and scholarships scheme though Victoria University of Wellington Art History programme to enable future generations of young New Zealanders to undertake post-graduate study in art history internationally. In recent years the Day Trust has also become a regular benefactor of the New Zealand heritage sector; most notably The Katherine Mansfield Birthplace Society that was formed by Oroya Day in 1986.

All works in this exhibition are available for purchase and the majority of the funds raised will contribute to The Oroya & Melvin Day Charitable Trust. In taking advantage of this opportunity to acquire rare artworks by a significant New Zealand artist, buyers will also be supporting Oroya and Melvin Day’s enduring legacy of philanthropy.

01. STILL LIFE WITH HYDRANGEAS, circa 1948 (Painted as a gift for the artist’s mother)

Watercolour on paper 350 325 mm

03. LARGE ROSES IN A VASE, circa 1948 Oil on board 455 355 mm

04. WAIOTAPU, Evening, 1948

Oil on board 405 528 mm

05. WAIMANGU (CÉZANNE STYLE), 1950

07. SPANISH BULLFIGHT, circa 1951

Oil on cardboard 1010 740 mm

08. PARIS STREET SCENE, circa 1952

09.

SCENE - TOLEDO, Spain, circa 1952

10. TREE AND BUILDINGS, 1952 Tempera pigment in Gum Arabic on paper 605 400 mm

13. HYDRANGEA ABSTRACTION II, 1953 Oil on paper 280 255 mm

11. HIBISCUS ABSTRACTION, 1953 Oil on paper 390 270 mm

12. HYDRANGEA ABSTRACTION I, 1953 Oil on paper 315 290 mm

14. LIGHT PATTERNS ABSTRACTION, 1953 Oil on paper 365 265 mm

15. STILL LIFE WITH ROSES VARIATION, circa 1955 Oil monotype on paper 520 415 mm

16. SPROUTING BULBS, 1955 Oil monotype on paper 480 440 mm

17. STILL LIFE WITH BOTTLE, GLASS AND FRUIT, circa 1956 Oil on paper 385 590 mm

18. SARDINES ON A PLATE, 1955 Oil on paper 400 570 mm

STANDING FIGURES, 1957

Oil on canvas

650 860 mm

21. ABSTRACT FIGURES IN A LANDSCAPE, circa 1957Oil on canvas 900 x 880mm

23. RECLINING NUDE, 1958 Tempera on paper 260 550 mm

25. SPANISH HOUSES, 1959 Oil on board 340 1010 mm

26. THE SENTINELS, 1961 Oil on board 650 860 mm

28. ROSETTA STONE, Alphabetical series, 1966 Oil on canvas 1270 710 mm

PYRAMID, 1975 Oil on canvas 1520 1220 mm

INITIUM SERIES III, 1981

Oil on canvas

1530 1220 mm

32. STILL LIFE WITH BOTTLE, FRUIT, AND DRAPERY, 1982 Oil on canvas

1220 1530 mm

33. SMALL COURTYARD IV WITH ONION, 1984 Oil on canvas 1220 1530 mm

34. WELLINGTON HARBOUR ENTRANCE FROM ABOVE BREAKER BAY, 1994Oil on canvas 920 1520 mm

TASMAN POINT, (study) 2005Oil on paper 1000

705 mm

SINCLAIR HEAD I, 2010Oil on paper 705 1000 mm

37. SINCLAIR HEAD II, 2010Oil on paper 1000 705 mm

39. OWHIRO, 2010Oil on canvas 920 1520 mm

40. HOROKIWI, 2010Oil on paper 560 750 mm

41. BARING HEAD, 2010Oil on canvas 1100 1520 mm

Mark Hutchins-Pond Specialist, Art +64 22 095 5610 mark@webbs.co.nz

Karen Rigby Business Manager +64 22 344 5610 karen@webbs.co.nz

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wellington 23 Marion Street Te Aro Wellington, 6011

30. DRAWING TOWARDS A PAINTING, 1976 Graphite, crayon, and brushed oil paint on paper 470 680 mm

27. TABULA, circa 1962 Crayon, ink, and watercolour on paper 760 860 mm