A Family Collection

A Family Collection brings together a selection of works collected by John and Tui Farrell in Wellington during the 1970s and ‘80s. Their son Kahu recalls the time in the mid-80s when Richard Killeen’s Natural and Unnatural Selection was hung. A family friend, one Peter McLeavey, came to hang it with customary precision. There, on a wall in an arts-and-crafts house on a quintessential Wellington hillside, the artwork made its home for nearly forty years.

“My mandarins”, McLeavey called those like the Farrells from Wellington professional and public service backgrounds who bought art, talked about art, put art in their home and, in many ways, made art their home. In his professional life John Farrell worked at the NZ Securities Commission, with an almost two-decade period as Chief Executive. For a time Tui even helped select works for the Security Commission’s walls. Through purchasing works from Peter McLeavey, the Farrells supported the gallery in its early years when the number of those interested in contemporary art was far fewer.

This selection is just a taste of the collection that formed a backdrop to the Farrells’ family life for many decades. Works were purchased slowly and intuitively, leading happy coincidences and surprising and pleasing arrangements. In its variety and its colour, its jewel-like intensity and its humour, this is a family collection in the very best sense.