Showing posts with label 1920. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1920. Show all posts

Apr 18, 2009

Maurice Conly, Artist


LARGE IMAGE OPENS IN A NEW TAB OR WINDOW

At the end of a 3,488 kilometre flight from Christchurch, NZ7005, a 1969 Lockheed C-130H Hercules aircraft of the Royal New Zealand Air Force's No.40 Squadron unloads passengers and supplies at the Williams Field on the Ross Ice Shelf in McMurdo Sound in early 1974.

Seen above in original livery, but subsequently painted out in shades of camouflauge green and now in a monochrome gun-metal grey, the 40 year old aircraft is still in service with the RNZAF.


No work of a local artist would be more familiar to New Zealanders than that of the relatively unknown Maurice Conly.

For 54 years Wing Commander Robert Maurice Conly (1920-1995) was the last Royal New Zealand Air Force Official Artist. But beyond his stamp designs for New Zealand, Tokelau, the Ross Dependency, Niue and the Cook Islands, Conly's New Zealand twenty cent and one dollar coin designs are familiar to all Kiwis.

Dunedin born and trained, Conly was based at Christchurch when he returned to Antarctica in 1974 as an Antarctic Arts Fellow under the Artists to Antarctica Programme.


Commissioned to paint three large dioramas of wildlife studies for the Antarctic wing of the Canterbury Museum in 1977, he published Ice on my Palette in the same year. The coffee table sized book includes 27 sketches and 26 colour plates, with text by the Dunedin author Neville Peat, then an information officer with the Antarctic Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.

One of the joys of the last town before Antarctica is the weekend Flea markets, not the trendy version on the city's outskirt at Riccarton, but the smaller, lesser known markets dotted around the inner suburbs. Signed by the authors, a copy of Ice on my Palette (from which the top illustration comes) was recently found in the Linwood Market at approximately a fifty-sixth of its international market value.

Aug 11, 2008

1870 Cantebury Masonic Lodge


Christchurch's The Press newspaper has recently published an article relating to the discovery of the hidden ground floor facade of the 1870 Masonic Lodge on the east side of Manchester Street, between Worcester and Hereford Streets.

Unfortunately the article contains some significant inaccuracies, which for the benefit of the historical record, we are pleased to correct:-
Named after the Patron Saint of the English city of Canterbury, the foundation stone of the second St Augustine Lodge No. 4 building was laid on the 9th of March, 1870 and the first meeting was held there on the 10th of August in the same year.

The Lodge was built to the west of the stables situated behind the home of Samuel Bealey (1821–1909), second Superintendent of Canterbury. A large hall was built onto the back of the Lodge in 1883.

The Freemasons moved to their third premises in Gloucester Street West in April, 1916. By 1920 two single-storey shops were built on the front of their 1870 Manchester Street Lodge, with a third shop occupying the former lane access to the Right hand side. The old building continues to appear in the photographic record until 1968, but had been demolished by 1972.


Proposed Redevelopment

Property developer Angus McFarlane will restore the 1870 facade, incorporating it into the foyer and Coffee shop, of the six level Manchester Business Centre. The proposed design of the new building, as depicted above, will be modified to enable the historic Palladian style facade to be visible from Manchester Street.

The original article: Hidden wall revealed, 09 August 2008.



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Architectural drawing by Canterbury Heritage for the site developer. The outer thirds of the lower floor facade have survived.