Member Profile

First Name

Warren

Surname

Feeney

PHANZA Joining Date

2010

Region

Canterbury

Specialities

Twentieth century New Zealand art, 2 NZEF war artist Peter McIntyre, art in Canterbury 1850-2000.

About Me

I am the Director of the Canterbury Society of Arts Charitable Trust t/a COCA (Centre of Contemporary Art: www.coca.org.nz) and have researched and written on New Zealand’s art and cultural history since 1989. I completed an MA at the University of Canterbury based on war artist Peter McIntyre in 1996 and my PhD on the Canterbury Society of Arts (1880-1996) at the University of Otago in 2009. I am interested in the relationship that New Zealanders have with their art and culture and have researched numerous issues related to the country’s cultural development. These have included the contribution that the International Exhibition in 1906-07 made to the development of New Zealand art and the controversy that erupted over the presentation of a contemporary painting by Frances Hodgkins to Christchurch’s public gallery in 1951. I have also provided regular newspaper commentary on a range of subjects, including hip-hop, the art market, art competitions and government support for the arts.

Publications and Research

Articles:

‘ “Doing the Right Thing”: W. S. Baverstock and the Arts in Canterbury 1943-1969,’

The Journal of New Zealand Art History, Volume 30, December 2009, pp. 37-53.

‘The Great Art War. Alan Brassington and the Pleasure Garden Incident,’ The Journal of New Zealand Art History, Volume 28, December 2007, pp. 97-113.

‘National Identity and Peter McIntyre’s New Zealand,’ The Journal of New Zealand Art History, Volume 25, December 2004, pp. 1-12.

‘Artists Behaving Badly,’ (Book review: Sam Mahon, The Year of the Horse, Longacre, 2002), Landfall 206, No. 206 November 2003, pp. 192 – 197.

‘Peter McIntyre,’ Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Vol 5, Auckland: Auckland University Press and Department of Internal Affairs, 2001.

Biographies for Peter McIntyre Senior and Peter McIntyre, Southern People. A Dictionary of Otago Southland Biography, Dunedin: Longacre Press and Dunedin City Council, 1998, pp. 307-308.

‘Traversing the Urban Landscape. The Art of Ross Gray,’ Art New Zealand, 88 Spring 1998, pp. 54-57.

‘Holcroft, Woollaston and Modern Art in Greymouth in the 1950s,’ The Bulletin of New Zealand Art History, Volume 18 1997, pp. 109-118.

‘The War paintings of Peter McIntyre. Fine Art Traditions and Popular Culture,’ Art New Zealand, 77 Summer 1996, pp. 70-73.

‘The Reverend James Preston,’ Art New Zealand, 52 Spring 1989, pp. 84-87.

Exhibition Catalogues:

Life’s Unfolding Drama,’ The 2008 Pacific Rim International Print Exhibition, University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts, Christchurch: University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts, 2008. (Introductory essay for the exhibition catalogue.)

‘Art History: Locating a Tangible and Intangible Truth,’ Christchurch College of Education Jubilee Exhibition Catalogue, Christchurch: College of Education, 2002, pp. 10-13.

‘In Favour of Regionalism,’ Dark Plain, Christchurch: Christchurch Arts Festival, 2001, pp. 22-25.

Gruesome! The Influence of Comics on Contemporary New Zealand Artists, Christchurch: Contemporary Art Annex. Robert McDougall Art Gallery, 1999.

Forthcoming publications:

‘The Establishment of the Canterbury Society of Arts: Forming the Taste, Judgement and Identity of a Province,’ New Zealand Journal of History, October 2010.

Current projects:

I am currently working on a book based on the Canterbury Society of Arts (1850-1996), to be published by Canterbury University Press. This is a cultural and social history of the arts in Canterbury from 1850 until the late 1990s and draws attention to the substantial contribution that art societies made to New Zealand’s cultural development in the nineteenth and twentieth century.

History

Member for

2 years 4 weeks