Te Papa to exhibit major European art

Photo: STADEL MUSEUM Photo: STADEL MUSEUM Photo: STADEL MUSEUM Photo: STADEL MUSEUM Photo: STADEL MUSEUM Photo: STADEL MUSEUM Photo: STADEL MUSEUM Photo: STADEL MUSEUM Photo: STADEL MUSEUM Photo: STADEL MUSEUM Photo: STADEL MUSEUM

Pablo Picasso's Portrait of Fernande Olivier, 1909

Max Beckmann's Double portrait, 1923

Beckmann's The synagogue in Frankfurt am Main, 1919

Pierre-Auguste Renoir's After the luncheon, 1879

Edvard Munch's In the bar, 1890

Edgar Degas' Tall female dancer, 1919, bronze

Henri Evenepoel's At Café d'Harcourt in Paris, 1897

Paul Meyerheim's The jealous lioness, 1885-90

Odilon Redon's Christ and the Samaritan Woman, 1895

Johann H W Tischbein's Goethe in the Roman Campagna, 1786-87

Henri Rousseau's The avenue in the Park of Saint Cloud, 1908

Franz Marc's Dog lying in the snow, 1911

Max Klinger's Portrait of a Roman woman on a rooftop in Rome, 1891

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Te Papa has scored an exhibition of one of the world's great art collections. European Masters is worth "hundreds of millions" of dollars and includes works by Picasso and van Gogh.

The collection has never before left Europe and is the most significant body of works of its type to come to New Zealand since 1980, Te Papa European art curator Vicki Robson says.

About 150,000 people were expected to view it in Wellington – its only New Zealand venue – from November 6 to February 27.

Matisse, Renoir, Degas, Cezanne, Monet and Manetare some of the big names among 98 works by 70 artists.

The exhibition focuses on the 19th century and early 20th century period of European art – an era that gave birth to virtually all modern Western art, from neo-classicism to surrealism.

Victoria University art history lecturer Roger Blackley said the exhibition would have a value of hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Government has indemnified the collection, but would not say for how much. The Culture and Heritage Ministry said it had a confidentiality agreement with Te Papa and publicising the value would increase the security risk.

The museum is spending $542,000 to bring the show to Wellington, and has budgeted $350,000 to prepare the space.

Ms Robson said, "our usual security measures will be taken".

A spokesman for Arts Minister Chris Finlayson said the Government indemnified exhibitions such as European Masters and last year's Monet at Te Papa to enable them to travel to New Zealand and be appreciated by all Kiwis.

"Without government indemnification, the exhibition would not be able to come here."

The collection of European masters comes from the Stadel Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, which is having a 40-million ($72m) expansion. "They don't lend their collection. It's only because they are having to get them offsite that this exhibition has come up," Ms Robson said.

The National Gallery of Victoria, in Melbourne, organised the show to come Down Under and offered it to Te Papa. Planning had been underway for about two years, Ms Robson said.

Of particular interest was the Degas painting Orchestra Musicians, which was the first of his famous ballet paintings; Picasso's "very significant" Portrait of Fernande Olivier, which signalled the start of Cubism; and 10 works by German expressionist painter Max Beckmann, painted between 1905 and 1950.

The earliest work is the 1786-1787 painting Goethe in the Roman Countryside by Johann Tischbein. Most of the works were painted between 1810 and 1950.

More than 110,000 people have seen the exhibition in Melbourne since it opened on June 19.

Positively Wellington Tourism chief executive David Perks said, like Monet and the Impressionists at Te Papa, European Masters would be fantastic for the city culturally and economically. An economic-impact report said new spending in Wellington thanks to the Monet exhibition was $34.5m.

- © Fairfax NZ News