Gallery 91 by Julia Holderness & Petrena Fishburn for SCAPE Public Art Season 2017

In 1959 Barbara and André Brooke established Christchurch’s first contemporary dealer art gallery at 91 Cashel Street, showing New Zealand painting, ceramics, drawing, sculpture and textiles. It positioned NZ contemporary art (engaging with Western ideas of Modernism) as a desirable, exciting and important part of local culture. They promoted the New Zealand artist as a respectable and professional practitioner and showed June Black, Helen Brown, John Coley, Rudi Gopas, Louise Henderson, Quentin MacFarlane, Colin McCahon, Milan Mrkusich, Don Peebles, Olivia Spencer Bower, and Toss Woollaston, among other artists. The Brookes cultivated a sophisticated, social atmosphere at Gallery 91, serving freshly percolated European coffee, and were open late into the evenings. They had lively openings and also offered a rich programme of public events, such as artist talks, lectures and slide evenings. As the first contemporary dealer in Christchurch, Gallery 91 lasted for just 10 months. Through examination, re-making, and re-presentation of archival material and testimonies, Auckland-based artist Holderness and Timaru-based art historian Fishburn offered a consideration of the legacy of Gallery 91 and how it helped to shape the Canterbury art scene. Among her other ventures in support of contemporary New Zealand artists, Barbara Brooke went on to found the Brooke Gifford Gallery with Judith Gifford in 1975, one of Christchurch’s longest running dealer galleries (which closed subsequent to the 2010/11 earthquakes).