Gardening & artists who garden | NZ Fine Prints

For some people gardening is a chore, for others it is a sandpit for adults. 

The Garden by Barry Ross Smith

The intersection between human habitation and our natural environment is where the intrinsic beauty of plants meets our unique among animals impulse to re-order what nature has created in what appears to us to be a more aesthetically pleasing (and productive) way.  

Detail of Lazy Bones & the Pleasure Garden by Hamish Allan

It is fair bet that those of us who have been bitten by the gardening bug might also want to bring the outdoors inside when it comes to art, decorating our walls with botanical posters for instance. And it is not too far of a stretch to imagine these flora fans are also buying prints of birds in such vast numbers over the past few years as we celebrate the fact that native birds of NZ are being seen in increasing numbers within the gardens of our towns and cities thanks to both pest eradication but also the deliberate creation of habitat in domestic and public gardens.

Japanese artist Hiroshige, the epitome of gardens as art

But as part of a small campaign to exercise our print buyer's more whimsical choices (he jokes that sometimes he can't resist buying what he thinks people should want rather than what they actually do) we have dipped our toes into offering a new collection of wall art - prints of gardens and gardening (we have also allowed him to buy a large range of retro/vintage music and film posters) but he will now be back on the straight and narrow for the next
few months!

Backyard Incinerator by Dick Frizzell 

There are artists who garden,
most famously Claude Monet whose garden at Giverny was, as we would say these days, part of his practice. But local kiwi painters like Jeanette Blackburn are almost as well-known for their garden art galleries as for their work. And then we have Hamish Allan's carefully composed renditions of what could only be a New Zealand backyard, Dick Frizzell's "backyard" series like his prints of lawn mowers and the incinerator pictured here - and then the doyen of NZ garden painters Karl Maughan from whom we still have just the single offset print available, "Riverhead".

The impetus for putting together our new gardens/gardening art collection really came from seeing how the posters of Japanese woodblock prints brought together artistic merit with a celebration of gardening as art, as the gardens in Japan are surely the epitome of the landscape as art. And we thought that maybe people who are into gardening but not so much into art would like to see just how well Japanese style wall art would suit them but they would not think to search for this kind of artwork in our online catalogue.

Gardens are such a fascinating glimpse into the way we imagine we would like to live, from the garden that is neglected to one that is bursting with this season's most fashionable colours how we garden says so much about the people who live in it.  We hope you enjoy our new collection of garden art prints - it is not just for those of us who are into gardens and landscaping, surely there are plenty of folk who may enjoy a garden when it is an artistic expression of aspects of what a garden is framed on the wall rather than being out there pulling out the weeds every weekend!

Film & Music Posters - How we select vintage wall art design

The all encompassing term "wall art" is becoming a more prevalent shorthand for what were once

Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd

exclusively referred to as art prints and posters.  Like when what we thought should be called fine art by NZ painters a decade ago started getting referred to as "kiwiana" alongside the more obvious tiki paintings, four square man etc New Zealand Fine Prints are happy to move with the times and be guided by our customers what they would like to call what we sell even if this new phrase takes a bit of getting used to!

One of the advantages of the expanding definition of wall art (eg from framed prints to wall charts, prints on canvas and even wall decals) is we have been able to expand what we sell beyond the traditional reproduction prints of paintings, maps etc into other things that can go on the walls of kiwi homes and offices, but without straying too far from our core values as a business.  It seems obvious that those folks who show more than an average interest in art would also be interested in music, theatre and film and those of us on our wholesale buying team certainly are into the broader arts as well for sure.

Poster for Fritz Lang's Metropolis

But we believe that delivering value to customers is not just in a good quality item from a production standpoint, it also about selling decoration that will endure not just physically but also continue to be enjoyed as an artwork (ok, wall art) for many years.  This means selling prints by artists who have something to say, prints of places that mean something to New Zealanders and trying not to promote more ephemeral  watered down or generic designs that are, as we say, to match the curtains.   We don't want you to buy an artwork for your walls that "fashions out" really quickly.

So as we grow our range of film and music wall posters we had to devise a criteria that would satisfy demand for a broader range of poster choices without going too far down the path of stocking modern day music posters created for fans (or more cynically created by publishers to cash in on what's popular right now). Drawing a line between what we call the "social expression" market (the teenager whose choice of music or movie posters are a visual shorthand to tell people what kind of person they are) and the broader decorative - ie wall art - market where a poster is there both for its aesthetic merits as well as for its content/subject or design theme.

The Supremes UK Tour Poster

Our wholesale team have therefore decided that we won't - at least initially - stock music posters that are designed purely to demonstrate that you are a fan of a contemporary band or a singer or love a just released film. Musically these are the posters that are a photograph of the act (or actor) doing their thing on stage/film set or showing their attitude or style accompanied with the name of the group, rapper or singer or film.   Given the size of the New Zealand market and the order minimums that make sense when importing posters it just doesn't work for us to try and pick trends, there is nothing less saleable than a cutting edge music poster after the band's popularity has peaked!  But we believe there is a sweet spot where a music poster captures both the spirit of the band/singer with an iconic retro/vintage design aesthetic that makes it more broadly interesting than just to fans of the group. So we are stocking retro or vintage designs that have stood the test of time already and that we believe will continue to resonate for the life of the posters on your walls.

Obviously we would like to have a diversity of designs and acts from around the world and across different genres, so we have lined up four different wholesale suppliers across the US, Australia and Europe to try and achieve this aim.

We think in particular that vintage music poster designs for concerts and album releases are true to the spirit of New Zealand Fine Prints, they fit with our extensive range of vintage travel, tourism and advertising posters from what are now well-known graphic designers. This is where we offer a good quality reproduction of an authentic poster design, a replica as close as we can get to the original - ie without Photoshopping the imperfections.

Illustrating this post are examples of some of the new movie and music posters that are now in stock at New Zealand's wall art specialists since 1966, please check out our music and film poster collection to see everything we currently have for sale.

Common Mistakes When Choosing Wall Art | New Zealand Fine Prints

Common Mistakes When Choosing Wall Art

When looking at inspiration for wall art online, it’s easy to feel like the choice of art doesn’t matter, and most examples online look great because they’re in an expensive home! But the truth is, if you’re smart about the art pieces you choose to hang, you can make an interior look more incredible than you’d guess. No matter what your home décor looks like, putting some thought into choosing wall art can elevate your space, and transform your interior into something spectacular.

Below, we’re going to cover some of the common mistakes you should avoid when choosing art to hang on your wall, so you can get the most out of your home!

 

The Wrong Art for the Wrong Room

Step one is to make sure that a piece of art matches the room it’s in. A lot of the time, people will choose art pieces that look good online or in a store, but don’t match the room they’re being purchased for.

Professional interior designers or decorators usually approach this by first focusing on the function of a room. By understanding what each room is for, you get a better sense of the atmosphere you want to create with certain pieces of art. Sometimes this can require some experimentation, but there are some rules of thumb you can use as a starting point. For instance, a lounge is more likely to have a piece that’s colourful and dramatic than the bathroom, where it’s generally preferable to hang more relaxing or straightforward pieces.

 

Misusing Wall Space

One of the easiest mistakes to make when hanging art is underusing or overusing the space you have available to you. One piece hanging alone in the middle of a large wall will feel odd, as will many pieces covering a wall completely. You always want a bit of open space to let the pieces breathe, but too much can be distracting. 

This can depend on personal style; some people go for a very cluttered look on purpose, and this can work occasionally! But for most people’s homes a balance is preferable.

Generally speaking, more open space on a wall is more soothing. This means that louder, more dynamic pieces of art might look better with nothing around them than a more subdued, tame piece of art, because the emptiness balances out the noise of the piece of art. It often depends on the colours of the art and how they contrast with the colour of the wall. A lot of contrast can make one single piece of art pop, while pieces that are a similar colour to the wall will blend into it if surrounded by nothing but empty space.

 

Setting the Mood for the Wrong People

This mistake is more common than you might guess! When choosing wall art, homeowners often pick pieces based on the impression they want the space to give to guests and visitors. While this is important, and very much worth factoring into your decisions, it’s a mistake to prioritise this over choosing art that makes a good impression on you! And there’s a simple reason for this; you’re the one who has to look at it the most. 

This is why you’ll hear people saying it’s important to limit how eye-catching art pieces are in places like the bathroom. While it might seem like a fun idea to throw caution to the wind and put a really arresting piece of art in the bathroom, there’s a real chance that you’ll get sick of looking at it while brushing your teeth every day! So, most decorators opt for calming décor in the bathroom, and save more dramatic pieces for rooms where the owner will spend less time, like a hallway near the front door. 

Again, it’s ultimately up to you, but it’s always worth thinking ahead and considering what it’s going to really be like looking at a piece of art every day.

 

Ready to choose some art for your home?

The NZ Fine Prints collection has a wide range of art pieces, in varying styles, moods, and materials, including some of the best canvas art prints in NZ, from celebrated Kiwi artists. No matter which room you’re decorating, we can help you take it to the next level. Take a look at our site and explore our categories today!

Beautiful Black and White Art Prints for Your Home | NZ Fine Prints

Beautiful Black and White Art Prints for Your Home 

Black & white print by NZ artist Robyn Schroder "As the Mist Clears"

Monochrome art prints have long been a staple when it comes to decorating, as black and white—when used appropriately—can fit into almost any colour scheme. Many different styles of interior design make use of monochrome tones, including minimalist, contemporary, art deco, and Scandinavian design. Even very vibrant colour palettes can benefit from a bit of black and white, as black helps bring a space down to earth and gives other colours a grounding point, while white provides a dramatic contrast. Including both is a great way to focus the look of almost any space and bring a fresh sophistication to it. Here in New Zealand, black and white (or silver) are two of our national colours, along with the red ochre seen on the Tino Rangatiratanga flag. When adding a bit of black and white to a space here in Aotearoa, it carries a little bit of extra meaning, and can really be a chance to create a visual context that us Kiwis live within. Below, we showcase our favourite monochrome art prints, with particular attention to the those that reference our home right here at the bottom of the world.

Rise Up – Barry Ross Smith

First, we have this print by Barry Ross Smith. It’s no surprise that a lot of Kiwiana artworks reference our national pastime—rugby. For many, the All Blacks are the first thing that comes to mind when you mention ‘black’ and ‘New Zealand’ in the same sentence. Nearly all our national sports teams use either black or silver in some way, and this translates easily into the monochrome pieces created by Kiwi artists. Barry describes this painting as evoking the passion we feel for our national game, while tying it to our agricultural heritage.

 

Mince – Dick Frizzell

Part of a series of domestic graphics, ‘Mince’ is an understated print, perfect for the kitchen. It embodies the labour of household management, but chooses to do so in a sharp, uncompromising way, referencing the Kiwi approach to practical living. This screenprint is available on Artistico Fabriano cotton rag paper.

As the Mist Clears – Robyn Schroeder

This print of Robyn Schroeder’s original painting showcases another element of Aotearoa that we hold dear—the natural landscape. Presented in stark black and white, this piece depicts mist evaporating off a South Island lake in the morning. Connection to the land has always been important for those living in New Zealand, giving this piece an unspoken weight and beauty. This print is ideal for pulling together larger spaces, like the dining or living room.

 

 

Game of Two Halves – Weston Frizzell

Another Frizzell family piece, this print is a cool piece of modern NZ printmaking which also celebrates our national game of rugby. It is a sophisticated representation of the game, referencing the popular phrase “game of two halves”, which is used to state that any situation could end any number of ways, regardless of how it seems to be going now. It also references the koru shape, the illusionist works of MC Escher, and the dualist concept of Yin and Yang.

Scared – Colin McCahon

Finally, we have this NZ masterwork. More abstract than the others presented so far, ‘Scared’ can be seen as a highly personal work, and an allegory of McCahon’s life, but its cry is also a universal one—a call of protest and a demand to take action. Colin McCahon started his ‘Scared’ series in the mid-70s when he was around 60 years of age. His work was often directly related to emotion, and he talked at length about his fears and doubts when discussing his art. The artwork has a harder edge than more commercial Kiwiana style prints, making it better suited to spaces that want to be more attention grabbing, or challenging. Similar prints by this artist can be found in our Colin McCahon art collection.

 

Learn more about decorating with Fine Prints!

For more advice on decorating from the NZ experts, follow our blog for articles like this. If you’re interested in purchasing high-quality prints in black and white, you can also take a look at our new black and white prints collection!

Postage stamps to wall art

"3d Huia" Stamp
- prints now available

Designers of historical NZ stamps are from the era of "craftsman printmakers" who until recently were routinely dismissed or ignored by art historians who saw printmaking becoming respectable as a fine art form only when painters of fine art began to dabble in it after 1950. A series of historical NZ stamp designs have been released this month in black and white prints at wall art size, closing the circle of the trend in contemporary art for artists to reference retro postage stamp design in their paintings and prints over the past couple of years. And revisiting the designs shows clearly that early craftsman printmakers such as LC Mitchell were producing attractive and superbly composed artworks within the constraints of the commercial imperatives of the time.

New Zealand: Phantom Country
Lester Hall "Postage Stamp" series print

The conventions of (albeit much enlarged) postage stamp design have been explored recently in the work of several contemporary NZ artists (most infamously with Bay of Islands printmaker Lester Hall whose now iconic postage stamp design prints started with the Phantom series shown here). In fact the postage stamp style print has, we think, become a veritable trend (see Weston Frizzell's Four Seasons series print "Aotearoa" , the work of Jane Crisp, some of Timo's artwork etc).  But until the arrival this month of a series of prints enlarging historical NZ postage stamp designs into art prints we hadn't realised that prints of the actual stamps would work well as wall art - or that the designers of early stamps in NZ were often the very same men responsible for NZ's golden age of tourism and travel poster art.

The black and white prints of the Tui, Wahine, Tuatara from 1935 and the 8d and Huias stamp from the 1898 pictorials work remarkable well at wall art size (approximately half a metre square) and bring to light glorious examples of early NZ design that were previously only seen by stamp collectors.

The story behind the second set of "New Zealand Pictorials" issued in May 1935 began with a design competition that received over 1500 entries, the work of 11 designers was selected for the final designs.  The design competition was announced by the secretary of the Post Office department, G McNamara in the following terms (for the source of this transcript and other background information on the 1935 pictorials we gratefully acknowledge painter Mark Wooller's excellent website New Zealand Stamps.)

Designs for New Issue of Postage-Stamps

Designs are invited, in accordance with the specifications and conditions below, for a new issue of postage and revenue stamps for the Dominion of New Zealand, ranging in approximately fifteen denomonations from 1/2d. to 3s.


1. The design of each stamp must include a representation of characteristic or notable New Zealand scenery or genre, or industrial, agricultural, or pastoral scene: otherwise, the design may be of any pattern, provided the words "New Zealand Postage and Revenue" in Roman characters and the value in words, or in Arabic figures, or in figures and words, are plainly shown.


3. The design proper should be coloured, but uncoloured drawings or enlargements may accompany them. Photographs of any kind are excluded.


5. The designs are to sent under cover of a pseudonym, or a motto, accompanied by the name of the sender enclosed in a sealed envelope bearing the same assumed title outside….Each design is to be accompanied also by a concise description thereof.


6. A special board, on which there will be a representative or representatives of Art, as well as representatives of the Government Department concerned, will be set up to adjudicate on the merits of the designs submitted: and a price of 25 pounds will be paid for each design that is adopted for a stamp of the proposed series.

Print of L.C. Mitchell's 1935 stamp design

Leonard Cornwall Mitchell, who designed classic 1930s era NZ tourist and publicity posters (most readers would recognise his famous posters advertising, for example, destinations such as Mt Cook, Mt Egmont and Milford Sound) was eventually commissioned for four of the 14 stamp designs, a remarkable feat considering the number of entries and the anonymity of the submitters. One of his winning designs (for the 8d Tuatara) is pictured at left and the Maori Girl (3d Wahine), also the work of LC Mitchell, shown below right is remarkably similar to the figure depicted in his "New Zealand For Your Next Holiday" poster design from the 1920s.

Wellington's Evening Post newspaper reported on the day of the pictorials release under the headline The New Stamps: Rush to Purchase - Favourable Comments. 

3d Maori Girl
Prints released

"An unprecedented rush set in at the post offices this morning on the part of those desirous of purchasing specimens of the new pictorial stamps which were on sale for the first time today. At 8 a.m. there was a queue of buyers outside the C.P.O. [Central Post Office], and from that hour onwards sales were very brisk." Officials, readers were told, were prepared but "the lot of the vendor was hardly lightened by the ocassional incursion of the would-be wag who talked in terms of Tuataras, fantails, tuis or swordfish, rather than in terms of the more prosiac shillings and pence."  Comments from buyers such as "The stamps were far better than I thought they would be" were recorded and the article concluded that "From a New Zealander's point of view the new set is undoubtedly decidedly interesting, and it is a splendid example of the stamp-makers art".

Illustrating this article are three of the new large prints of postage stamp designs that are now in stock at NZ Fine Prints. They are really effective decoration at wall art size - historical/retro black and white NZ designs that are real, authentic visual artifacts from New Zealand's history with an impeccable design pedigree.