Bring it On Home

By moving from Christchurch to Auckland in 1993 I missed Tony de Lautour’s ‘arrival’ moment—his solo exhibition Bad White Art at the Brooke Gifford Gallery in 1994. A measure of its importance in de Lautour’s story is that a full facsimile of the catalogue of that exhibition (also shown at Testtrip in Auckland) is included in the book which accompanies Us V Them —the big survey show of this artist’s work at Christchurch Art Gallery earlier this year. The exhibition, consisting of around 100 items (including paintings, ‘revisionist’ paintings, ceramics, silverware, painted objects and sculptures), brought home to me clearly, if belatedly, just how accomplished an artist Tony de Lautour has become in the last quarter-century.

Before I left Christchurch I was writing art reviews for and welcomed the emergence of a talented group of Ilam graduates holding their first solo shows at the Brooke Gifford Gallery in Manchester Street, virtually the only dealer gallery in town at the time. I vividly recall shows by Bill Hammond, Peter Robinson, Séraphine Pick, Shane Cotton and Saskia Leek which gave clear evidence that something extraordinary was slouching towards Manchester Street to be born, though each took a while before their signature styles