All NZ Fine Prints staff and families are ok. We are unable to ship orders due to our building being within the CBD cordon as well as disruption to normal post and courier services.
We appreciate the emails and calls of support from our artists, suppliers and customers throughout New Zealand and around the world.
Our focus is on our families and friends during this difficult time. Our staff will respond to emails and telephone messages in due course, please be patient at it will be at least several days before we can even begin to offer anything close to our normal levels of customer service. Please email us at enquiries@prints.co.nz or leave a message on 0800 800 278 and we will get back to you as soon as we can.
New signage for our Christchurch Gallery by kiwiana artist JK
Christchurch painter Jason Kelly is at the vanguard of the kiwiana art movement that is sweeping galleries and design stores across New Zealand. But we also knew that he had initially trained as a commercial sign writer - so who better to design and create the new signs for our gallery in Christchurch following the earthquake in September 2010 than JK?
We got progress emails from him saying things like "Are you happy for me to freestyle a little with timber choices and a have slightly different shape?" and then a few days later "I found some cool pieces of wood and metal work yesterday…I hope you won't mind". We began to wonder if Jason was heading off on one of his quirky tangents but he assured us we would appreciate the recycled bed head pieces in the final sign/artwork!
The final design was unveiled this morning at 202 Hereford and we are delighted with our new signage that not only makes it a lot easier to find our store but subtly reminds visitors that although we are NZ's largest online art retailer we have been in the art print business for nearly five decades.
We got progress emails from him saying things like "Are you happy for me to freestyle a little with timber choices and a have slightly different shape?" and then a few days later "I found some cool pieces of wood and metal work yesterday…I hope you won't mind". We began to wonder if Jason was heading off on one of his quirky tangents but he assured us we would appreciate the recycled bed head pieces in the final sign/artwork!
The final design was unveiled this morning at 202 Hereford and we are delighted with our new signage that not only makes it a lot easier to find our store but subtly reminds visitors that although we are NZ's largest online art retailer we have been in the art print business for nearly five decades.
Contemporary Maori artist Douglas Ferris talks about his popular prints
For over a decade prints of Maori artist Douglas Ferris' exquisite pencil sketches have sold steadily to collectors of Maori art throughout NZ and around the world. Born in Hastings Ferris is from the iwi Ngati Porou. Douglas is shown here creating one of his portraits in his studio.
We asked Douglas to tell us a bit more about his artistic background and what sparked his interest in Maori portraits in particular. Ferris told us that he gained his Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts with Honours from Brigham Young University in Hawaii, his wife Charlotte added that "he received the prestigious Top Artist Student Award in 1995 [his last year of study]. Charlotte also told us that Douglas' "informal training began as soon as he was able to hold a pencil and paintbrush. He has drawn and painted ever since [and] has been doing portraits since primary school".
So why did he focus on portraits of Maori? Ferris said he had admired "the special spirit that our Maori people innately possess" and that he particularly "enjoyed capturing this human spirit in representational art". Capturing the pride of "our people" in his portraiture is paramount to Douglas. Ferris says he doesn't take it to heart when people criticise him for selling portraits of Maori (see our previous post on the controversy about prints of Maori portraits by Goldie & Lindaur), he gets "thousands of thanks for making it possible for relations to have a picture of their relation".
Ferris' classical art education background sees him looking to masters of representational art such as Carravagio, Rembrandt and Velazquez for inspiration rather than to other contemporary NZ artists and he describes the process of creating his Maori portraits in characteristically straight forward terms "I look, I see, I create". All of Douglas' prints are held in stock at New Zealand Fine Prints - at just $29.95 each his studies are some of the most popular prints in the Maori art collection with customers often buying several prints at a time to frame as a series.
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| Maori artist Douglas Ferris at work in his Hastings studio |
So why did he focus on portraits of Maori? Ferris said he had admired "the special spirit that our Maori people innately possess" and that he particularly "enjoyed capturing this human spirit in representational art". Capturing the pride of "our people" in his portraiture is paramount to Douglas. Ferris says he doesn't take it to heart when people criticise him for selling portraits of Maori (see our previous post on the controversy about prints of Maori portraits by Goldie & Lindaur), he gets "thousands of thanks for making it possible for relations to have a picture of their relation".
Ferris' classical art education background sees him looking to masters of representational art such as Carravagio, Rembrandt and Velazquez for inspiration rather than to other contemporary NZ artists and he describes the process of creating his Maori portraits in characteristically straight forward terms "I look, I see, I create". All of Douglas' prints are held in stock at New Zealand Fine Prints - at just $29.95 each his studies are some of the most popular prints in the Maori art collection with customers often buying several prints at a time to frame as a series.
NZ Photographer's "Winery Doors" poster series takes off
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| Nelson & Marlborough Winery Doors Poster |
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| "Winery Doors" photographer Renee Dale |
Recently however a young NZ photographer called Renee Dale (pictured above left on location) has put together a series of winery door posters that are chalking up an impressively large numbers of sales with over 100 retailers now carrying her posters across Australasia. Renee Dale's "Winery Doors" concept has taken her from her first poster of cellar doors in Hawkes Bay and Wairarapa, through Central Otago and Canterbury and she has just released her newest poster in the series, this time of wineries in Nelson and Marlborough (pictured above right). Dale has also completed posters in this series showing doors of wineries in the winegrowing regions of the US and Australia. We have been amazed at the popularity of these posters after sending them all around the world over the past few months - we agree with the sentiments of a Hawkes Bay winery owner who told Renee recently that he had "bought a box and thought I would just see how they went. Well, I was completely wrong to be worried. The first 10 sold out within the first week or so, so I ordered another 2 boxes. Then they sold out, and so on... People just love these cellar door posters...". It's a great concept and we look forward to the next project from this enterprising young NZ photographer.
NZ Art Print News: 2010 Year in Review
In one of our last articles for 2010 we look back at the big events of 2010 as covered in NZ Art Print News.
For NZ Fine Prints staff the biggest story of 2010 was the Christchurch Earthquake - all the articles covering this event and its affect on New Zealand's largest art print and poster store are covered here.
We can now look back and review the most important stories as judged by our readers and answer our annual question "What have been the most popular articles in NZ Art Print news in 2010?"
The top three articles by number of readers were our two longer essays on kiwiana in NZ art and New Zealand vintage posters written by NZ Prints' catalogue manager followed by our article on the use of the iconic "Four Square Man" in the artwork of Dick Frizzell posted when Frizzell released his Great NZ Songbook prints.
By far and away our most discussed post (rated by the number of comments) in 2010 was the piece we wrote to launch the controversial Weston Frizzell Auckland Supercity poster and despite a less vigorous discussion our exclusive story of the eBay Colin McCahon painting has ended the year with a cliff-hanger after someone signing themselves as the original art dealer has just posted a claim that the artwork bought for just $US4500 might not be a genuine McCahon "Bellini" series painting after all!
Our most read and commented article of all time is still the piece we wrote way back in May 2009 on the debate surrounding the reproduction of Maori portrait paintings by NZ artists like C.F. Goldie. This continues to attract opinions both for and against over 18 months after the original piece was written!
We are now in the midst of our very busiest time of the year (all those gifts being bought for Xmas) - it will then be a short break until we are back to begin the release of many new and exciting prints from New Zealand's favourite artists in 2011. Merry Xmas from all of us at NZ Fine Prints.
For NZ Fine Prints staff the biggest story of 2010 was the Christchurch Earthquake - all the articles covering this event and its affect on New Zealand's largest art print and poster store are covered here.
We can now look back and review the most important stories as judged by our readers and answer our annual question "What have been the most popular articles in NZ Art Print news in 2010?"
The top three articles by number of readers were our two longer essays on kiwiana in NZ art and New Zealand vintage posters written by NZ Prints' catalogue manager followed by our article on the use of the iconic "Four Square Man" in the artwork of Dick Frizzell posted when Frizzell released his Great NZ Songbook prints.
By far and away our most discussed post (rated by the number of comments) in 2010 was the piece we wrote to launch the controversial Weston Frizzell Auckland Supercity poster and despite a less vigorous discussion our exclusive story of the eBay Colin McCahon painting has ended the year with a cliff-hanger after someone signing themselves as the original art dealer has just posted a claim that the artwork bought for just $US4500 might not be a genuine McCahon "Bellini" series painting after all!
Our most read and commented article of all time is still the piece we wrote way back in May 2009 on the debate surrounding the reproduction of Maori portrait paintings by NZ artists like C.F. Goldie. This continues to attract opinions both for and against over 18 months after the original piece was written!
We are now in the midst of our very busiest time of the year (all those gifts being bought for Xmas) - it will then be a short break until we are back to begin the release of many new and exciting prints from New Zealand's favourite artists in 2011. Merry Xmas from all of us at NZ Fine Prints.
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