Xmas Mailing Dates NZ 2019

Christmas day in 2019 falls on a Wednesday.  This is pretty much ideal for delivering last minute Xmas gifts as online retailers like New Zealand Fine Prints can overnight orders made over that last weekend before Xmas day and they will still be delivered to NZ addresses on time.

So this year New Zealand Fine Prints' cut off date for NZ wide delivery by Xmas day is Monday 23rd December, for delivery to a rural address (RD) please order by Friday 20 Dec.

Official mailing dates are below, these apply to our standard delivery service. There may be other delivery options available outside of our standard service/pricing so if you think you are running out of time please call us on 0800 800 278 in the lead up to Xmas, we should be able to work something out for you.

NZ Fine Prints Christmas Mailing Dates for 2019 are as follows:

Delivery worldwide at our standard rate of just $NZ15 (for any number of prints):

Australia

Please order your gifts by Wednesday 4th December 2019

UK & Europe, East Asia, North America & South Pacific

Please order your gifts by Monday 2 December 2019

Rest of World

Order gifts for Xmas delivery by Friday 27th November 2019

Xmas Delivery to NZ Addresses

Standard Delivery for $NZ6 (for any number of prints)

We need to have your orders for prints being delivered as gifts for Xmas by 3pm Friday 20th December 2019

Deadline for next day courier delivery via CourierPost with guaranteed delivery for Xmas day is 3pm Monday 23rd December 2019

Framed Prints - please order 10 working days before these mailing dates to ensure we can deliver by Christmas.

Gift Vouchers

NZ Prints also deliver gift vouchers by mail to NZ addresses if ordered by 23rd December - and email gift vouchers are even being purchased on Xmas day itself and delivered instantly around the world. Now that is last second Christmas shopping!

Shipping & Delivery Updates

As we get closer to Xmas we will update any delays or known issues with Xmas delivery on our shipping & delivery page.

Vintage Map Series - "Tourist Map of NZ" in stock today

Vintage Tourist Map of NZ

This print on canvas is the latest release in the series of genuine vintage tourist poster designs re-printed as a ready to hang canvas print in what we are calling the "Wall Chart" style - with wooden hangers top and bottom.

Re-published today is the splendid mid-century "Tourist Map of New Zealand" with a scale of 34 miles to an inch.

Truly delightful as the cities and towns are not shown in sizes relative to their commercial importance but from the traveller's interest!  So much detail to discover, with insets covering "Rotorua Tourist Routes", "The Taupo Fisheries", "Lake Wanaka and Vicinity" and "Alpine Regions in the vicinity of Mt Cook".

Arranged and drawn at the Headquarters of the Lands & Survey Department, Wellington New Zealand - for the NZ Government Tourism Department, CWM Royel delt 1946 [drawn by CWM Royel].

Particularly lovely are the four different kowhaiwhai borders, a kowhai Ngutukaka pattern along the bottom (the Pointed Flower of the Red Kowhai), on the left hand side "A well known East Coast and Rotorua Design - a conventionalised Patiki or Flat-Fish".  At the top is the "Ngaru Moana portraying the Rolling Waves of the Sea" and on the right hand side the "Arawa version of the Mangopare (Hammerhead Shark).

Printed directly onto canvas with quality wooden hangers at top and bottom, vintage NZ wall art that is ready to hang out of the box in the classic wall chart style.  Available now, $NZ 119.95 - delivered NZ wide for $NZ6, around the world for $NZ15.

Sofia Minson "Blessing the Pharaoh" Print Launch

Artist Sofia Minson

A new print from Auckland artist Sofia Minson was launched today.  It is called "Blessing the Pharaoh" - and from 4pm this afternoon it is available to buy from New Zealand Fine Prints.  To accompany its launch we have been given a superb set of resources about the new artwork, there is a very interesting story of the paintings origins, symbolism and meanings on the listing in our catalogue as well as the video about the making of "Blessing the Pharaoh", a link to which is posted below.

Sofia says "I am drawn to the ever-unfolding wisdom and links between Maori and Egyptian myths, which demonstrate principles of nature in the form of gods and goddesses. Here we weave a new cross-cultural story, yet it is an eternally old one about the transformation of consciousness.”

New Limited Edition Print "Blessing the Pharaoh"

A brief summary of the new work:

● Blessing the Pharaoh is based on the statue in the Cairo Museum of Horus and Seth
blessing the Pharaoh Ramesses III.
● The central figure of the painting embodies atua wahine - divine feminine lunar energy
and is seen as Hine-nui-te-pō, the goddess at the threshold of life and death in Maori
cosmology.
● The image reflects on our human archetypal story of inner sight unifying left and right
brain ways of thinking. The alchemical image ushers in a new state of being where left
brain logic does not rule over right brain holistic thinking, but a higher union of the two is
established.

And as Sofia says, “Before the painter makes their first mark, the blank canvas stares back at them in challenge.”

Price increase for Lester Hall Prints

The last couple of years has seen artist Lester Hall "back catalogue" a large proportion of images previously available as prints.  The effect of this has been that once a retailer such as New Zealand Fine Prints sold out of stock of a print Lester would not replace stock, essentially this print became sold out/deleted and will now only be available on the re-sale market (eg through secondary sales at auction). 

In an announcement taking effect today (Monday 8th April) Lester has raised prices of his current range of prints to $495.

Lester Hall "Queen of the Fern" $495

We will have his prints listed at what is now the old price in our current printed mail order fine art print catalogue for a while yet but pricing has been updated online in the Lester Hall collection at prints.co.nz

Lester is busy working on a new series of prints, the first release is Queen of the Fern, a portrait of a young Queen Elizabeth II wearing a jewel encrusted silver fern brooch. 

Posters from 1980s NZ

Posters were important when I was growing up. I hope they still are for today's kids.  We are gradually building up a good  collection of educational (eg science) posters over in our kids collection. There wasn't the large supply of commercial artwork promoting brands like today, but there were other rich sources for cheap posters for kids in pre-Rogernomics NZ.

Conservation New Zealand (Organization). Hall, Ken, 

fl 1980s :Conservation Week; 

Nature's place in town, 1-9 August 1981 

Ref: Eph-D-ENVIRONMENT-1981-02. Alexander Turnbull Library,

 Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22874794

Talented kiwi designers found themselves a niche churning out resources for the government departments that ran so many parts of the economy back in those days. 

In Nelson we had the entomology division of the DSIR (the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research) based at the Cawthron Insitute and both they and the Forest Service had many posters available for education use.  You would just go to the front counter and ask what they had.   

There were posters for Conservation Week each year, including the classic 1981 "Nature's Place in Town" pictured at left.

There were also updates to 1930s era  vintage posters for the photographic age that show the enduring themes from how NZ was marketed abroad.  See the Maurice Poulton design "New Zealand: For the World's Best Sport" modernised to the photographically based "New Zealand: The Angler's Paradise" but retaining the same message and content.

Pictorial Publications Ltd :New Zealand,
"the angler's paradise".
Ref: Eph-E-TOURISM-1960s-02.
Alexander Turnbull Library,
Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23088078

1930s Vintage NZ Tourism Poster

Posters for women's lib (Girls can do Anything!) adorned the classroom, but not this blog as Crown copyright holds sway over the image still!

For older teens the arthouse cinema at the Bishop Suter Art Gallery was a happy hunting ground for movie posters, and we haunted the local record shops for music posters. These were reproductions of touring posters and posters promoting the band.

Trending New Zealand art in 2018

Today's post is a short video of New Zealand's top selling art prints/fine art posters in 2018.  Counting down the most popular prints based on sales data from New Zealand's largest art print store.

Video made by 11 year old Lucy, wondering if she will be following in the steps of her parents (and grandparents) to be part of the New Zealand Fine Prints company story around 2030 or so?