It is anything but discreet. The 15sq m ceramic mosaic by artist Roy Cowan, commissioned in 1972 by NMA Wright Stephenson for its new headquarters at Europa House in Wellington, is a big, bold sunburst of colour and form celebrating New Zealand’s agricultural, horticultural, forestry and fishing industries.
“Some of my work colleagues loved it,” says legal and policy adviser Diana Pickard, who worked in the building from 2006-08. “And some hated it. But what grabbed my attention was the sheer scale of work and the artistic effort that would have gone into making all those ceramic tiles.”
Now, it hangs in darkness, cloistered behind interior walls added during refurbishments in 2008 and 2017. As the building fell into disuse, Pickard began a one-person campaign to have the work, comprising seven large panels, saved. She contacted family members of Cowan, who died in 2006, art historians and dealers, a previous mayor, regional museums and Te Papa – the most logical choice to look after such an iconic work, she says. There were no takers.
Her work took a more urgent tone in August when the owners of the building, PSPIB/CPPIB Waiheke, applied to Wellington City Council for resource consent for a new Jasmax-designed building on the site. The earthquake-prone Europa House would be demolished. Pickard ended a letter to the editor of the with a call for
