Rex Nan Kivell
Encyclopedia
Sir Rex de Charembac Nan Kivell CMG (8 April 18987 June 1977) was a New Zealand
-born British
art collector, who was knighted on the recommendation of the government of Australia
, a country he never visited, for contributing to the National Library of Australia
his collection of books, paintings, prints, documents, manuscripts and artefacts relating to the history of Australia.
, New Zealand
to an unmarried mother, he was raised in the home of his maternal grandparents. He was educated at New Brighton Public School and the Royal College of Science
.
on 31 May 1916. He served in England (1916-1919) on the staff of No. 1 New Zealand Hospital General Hospital, Brockenhurst
, Hampshire (part of his collection of photos was taken here) and at the New Zealand Command Depot, Codford
, Wiltshire. On an extended period of leave in England, from October 1917 to May 1918, he began to pursue his growing antiquarian interests. Around 1918 he started to style himself Rex de Charembac Nan Kivell.
He attributed an early interest in collecting to Sydney Smith, an antiquarian book dealer in Christchurch whom Nan Kivell met while still at school. Nan Kivell was also inspired to read history and geography, especially works on European voyagers in the Pacific.
Nan Kivell worked on the La Tène
archaeological excavations in Wiltshire, and presented the objects he unearthed to the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society
Museum in Devizes
.
Nan Kivell's association with the Redfern Gallery began in 1925. It had been founded two years earlier by two wealthy Englishmen and by 1931, Nan Kivell was managing director. He ran the gallery in association with his Australian business partner, Harry Tatlock Miller.
There seems to be little doubt that the Redfern was a significant force in stimulating British conservative taste to embrace modern and new art. Through the Redfern Gallery, Nan Kivell encouraged and helped to establish many British artists including Henry Moore
, Barbara Hepworth
and Graham Sutherland
. He also helped to introduce a number of important European artists to England such as Pierre Bonnard
, Chaim Soutine
, Max Ernst
, Pablo Picasso
and Édouard Vuillard
. He gave encouragement to an emerging generation of Australian painters and designers including Sidney Nolan
and Loudon Sainthill.
At the same time, as a private hobby, he began to collect books, paintings, prints, documents, manuscripts and artefacts relating to the history of Australia
, New Zealand
and the Pacific.
Originally conceived as the basis of a pictorial history of Australia and New Zealand, Nan Kivell's collection began to extend beyond the purely pictorial. It came to encompass a whole range of documentary evidence created during the voyages of discovery, exploration and colonisation of the Antipodes in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the material produced as a result of those voyages.
Items in a variety of media from early maps, navigational instruments, etchings and pamphlets to oil paintings, manuscripts and important first editions were collected for the light that they could shed on European activity in the region. In going beyond the portraits of the elite and artworks judged at the time to be aesthetically important, to materials collected for their possible documentary importance, Nan Kivell both anticipated and provided the material for a re-evaluation of the history of the Australian, New Zealand, and Pacific region.
The Rex Nan Kivell Collection also includes Maori ceremonial war cleavers, Maori language publications and manuscripts, emu eggs, scrimshaw, Aboriginal king plates, a compass and sundial and Thomas Baines’ magnificent painted lantern slides of the mid 1850’s. He also collected books, prints, watercolours, photographs, letters and government documents.
Part of the pictorial collection includes works by artists such as S. T. Gill
, George French Angas
, Eugene von Guerard
, Sydney Parkinson
, Nicholas Chevalier
, the Port Jackson Painter
, Conrad Martens
, John Lewin
, Joseph Lycett
and Augustus Earle
.
Fine copies of the most basic early works on Pacific and Australian discovery and settlement such as William Dampier
, James Cook
, William Bligh
, the French explorers, Joseph Banks
and Arthur Phillip
are to be found in the collection. The collection is especially rich in unusual Bounty
items.
By the late 1940s, Nan Kivell's collection had become substantial and was housed in various locations around England. In 1946, concerned about the safety and preservation of the collection, Nan Kivell began negotiations with representatives in London of the then Commonwealth National Library, the present day National Library of Australia
(NLA). He was adamant that the collection should stay together and should also be available for use. In 1949 the first consignment of pictures, books and other material reached Canberra
on loan to the Library, which then sought, over a decade, to bring the collection into Australian ownership.
Although Nan Kivell was unfailingly generous in honouring his commitment to allow the Library full use of his collection, he was cautious in defining any agreement concerning its ultimate disposition, or in stating terms of its donation or sale. In 1959, he sold his collection to the Australian government for ₤STG
70,000, a fraction of its true value. This modest price, combined with his later gifts to the NLA, established him as one of the country's greatest cultural benefactors. Despite a number of invitations, he never visited Australia and never returned to New Zealand. In 1953 he had donated hundreds of contemporary prints by British artists to New Zealand institutions for the fine arts.
Nan Kivell's collection totals over 15,000 items which includes more than 253 oils, 1,587 lithographs, 306 aquatints, 780 watercolours, some 5,000 books, and has exercised a substantial and enduring influence on Australasian historical and artistic scholarship.
In 1992, 32 works from the collection were transferred on long-term loan to the National Gallery of Australia
.
(CMG) in 1966. In 1976 he was made a Knight Bachelor
, again by Australia. It has been suggested one of his motivations in selling his collection of Australiana at a fraction of its true value was to gain the knighthood he had long coveted for the purposes of social advancement.
On the recommendation of the Monarch and government of Denmark, Nan Kivell was also awarded the Order of Dannenbrog.
, London
and was buried in the parish churchyard at West Lavington, Wiltshire
. He has been described as "an archetypal outsider - illegitimate, homosexual, self-educated and antipodean".
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
-born British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
art collector, who was knighted on the recommendation of the government of Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, a country he never visited, for contributing to the National Library of Australia
National Library of Australia
The National Library of Australia is the largest reference library of Australia, responsible under the terms of the National Library Act for "maintaining and developing a national collection of library material, including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the...
his collection of books, paintings, prints, documents, manuscripts and artefacts relating to the history of Australia.
Early life
Born as Reginald Nankivell in ChristchurchChristchurch
Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the country's second-largest urban area after Auckland. It lies one third of the way down the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula which itself, since 2006, lies within the formal limits of...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
to an unmarried mother, he was raised in the home of his maternal grandparents. He was educated at New Brighton Public School and the Royal College of Science
Royal College of Science
The Royal College of Science was a higher education institution located in South Kensington; it was a constituent college of Imperial College London from 1907 until it was wholly absorbed by Imperial in 2002. Alumni include H. G. Wells and Brian May and are distinguishable by the letters ARCS ...
.
Becoming a collector and dealer
As an under age youth and listing his profession as bookbinder, Reginald Nankivell enlisted with New Zealand Expeditionary ForceNew Zealand Expeditionary Force
The New Zealand Expeditionary Force was the title of the military forces sent from New Zealand to fight for Britain during World War I and World War II. Ultimately, the NZEF of World War I was known as the First New Zealand Expeditionary Force...
on 31 May 1916. He served in England (1916-1919) on the staff of No. 1 New Zealand Hospital General Hospital, Brockenhurst
Brockenhurst
Brockenhurst is a village situated in the New Forest, Hampshire, England. The New Forest is a national park and Brockenhurst is therefore surrounded by woodland that attracts thousands of visitors all year round. The nearby towns surrounding Brockenhurst are Lymington and Lyndhurst. Brockenhurst...
, Hampshire (part of his collection of photos was taken here) and at the New Zealand Command Depot, Codford
Codford
Codford is a village and civil parish south of Salisbury Plain in the Wylye Valley in Wiltshire, England at .-Location:The village is on the A36 road between Salisbury and Warminster...
, Wiltshire. On an extended period of leave in England, from October 1917 to May 1918, he began to pursue his growing antiquarian interests. Around 1918 he started to style himself Rex de Charembac Nan Kivell.
He attributed an early interest in collecting to Sydney Smith, an antiquarian book dealer in Christchurch whom Nan Kivell met while still at school. Nan Kivell was also inspired to read history and geography, especially works on European voyagers in the Pacific.
La Tène culture
The La Tène culture was a European Iron Age culture named after the archaeological site of La Tène on the north side of Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland, where a rich cache of artifacts was discovered by Hansli Kopp in 1857....
archaeological excavations in Wiltshire, and presented the objects he unearthed to the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society
Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society
The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society was founded in 1853, and is one of the largest county-based archaeological societies in the UK. It runs the Wiltshire Heritage Museum in Devizes, Wiltshire which has the best Bronze Age collections in Britain, including finds from Avebury...
Museum in Devizes
Devizes
Devizes is a market town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. The town is about southeast of Chippenham and about east of Trowbridge.Devizes serves as a centre for banks, solicitors and shops, with a large open market place where a market is held once a week...
.
Nan Kivell's association with the Redfern Gallery began in 1925. It had been founded two years earlier by two wealthy Englishmen and by 1931, Nan Kivell was managing director. He ran the gallery in association with his Australian business partner, Harry Tatlock Miller.
There seems to be little doubt that the Redfern was a significant force in stimulating British conservative taste to embrace modern and new art. Through the Redfern Gallery, Nan Kivell encouraged and helped to establish many British artists including Henry Moore
Henry Moore
Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art....
, Barbara Hepworth
Barbara Hepworth
Dame Barbara Hepworth DBE was an English sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism, and with such contemporaries as Ivon Hitchens, Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, Naum Gabo she helped to develop modern art in Britain.-Life and work:Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth was born on 10 January 1903 in Wakefield,...
and Graham Sutherland
Graham Sutherland
Graham Vivien Sutherland OM was an English artist.-Early life:He was born in Streatham, attending Homefield Preparatory School, Sutton. He was then educated at Epsom College, Surrey before going up to Goldsmiths, University of London...
. He also helped to introduce a number of important European artists to England such as Pierre Bonnard
Pierre Bonnard
Pierre Bonnard was a French painter and printmaker, as well as a founding member of Les Nabis.-Biography:...
, Chaim Soutine
Chaim Soutine
Chaïm Soutine was a Jewish painter from Belarus. Soutine made a major contribution to the expressionist movement while living in Paris....
, Max Ernst
Max Ernst
Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.-Early life:...
, Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
and Édouard Vuillard
Édouard Vuillard
Jean-Édouard Vuillard was a French painter and printmaker associated with the Nabis.-Early years and education:...
. He gave encouragement to an emerging generation of Australian painters and designers including Sidney Nolan
Sidney Nolan
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan OM, AC was one of Australia's best-known painters and printmakers.-Early life:Nolan was born in Carlton, a suburb of Melbourne, on 22 April 1917. He was the eldest of four children. His family later moved to St Kilda. Nolan attended the Brighton Road State School and...
and Loudon Sainthill.
The Rex Nan Kivell Collection
By visiting galleries and becoming familiar with the work of contemporary artists, Nan Kivell began to develop the skills of discrimination and connoisseurship that would mark his future career as both a successful art dealer and collector. His success arose from his taste and judgement in recognising gifted artists before their reputations became widely established.At the same time, as a private hobby, he began to collect books, paintings, prints, documents, manuscripts and artefacts relating to the history of Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
and the Pacific.
Originally conceived as the basis of a pictorial history of Australia and New Zealand, Nan Kivell's collection began to extend beyond the purely pictorial. It came to encompass a whole range of documentary evidence created during the voyages of discovery, exploration and colonisation of the Antipodes in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the material produced as a result of those voyages.
Items in a variety of media from early maps, navigational instruments, etchings and pamphlets to oil paintings, manuscripts and important first editions were collected for the light that they could shed on European activity in the region. In going beyond the portraits of the elite and artworks judged at the time to be aesthetically important, to materials collected for their possible documentary importance, Nan Kivell both anticipated and provided the material for a re-evaluation of the history of the Australian, New Zealand, and Pacific region.
The Rex Nan Kivell Collection also includes Maori ceremonial war cleavers, Maori language publications and manuscripts, emu eggs, scrimshaw, Aboriginal king plates, a compass and sundial and Thomas Baines’ magnificent painted lantern slides of the mid 1850’s. He also collected books, prints, watercolours, photographs, letters and government documents.
Part of the pictorial collection includes works by artists such as S. T. Gill
S. T. Gill
S. T. Gill , also known by his signature S.T.G., was and English-born Australian artist.sheet 20.2 x 25.7 cm...
, George French Angas
George French Angas
George French Angas , was an English explorer, naturalist and painter.He was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, the eldest son of George Fife Angas, prominent in the establishment of the new colony of South Australia. Despite showing remarkable talent in drawing, he was placed in a London...
, Eugene von Guerard
Eugene von Guerard
Johann Joseph Eugene von GuérardHis first name is variously spelled "Eugen", "Eugene", "Eugène", one source mentions "Jean" ; his surname is spelled "Guerard" or "Guérard". The most frequent combination is that used by the National Gallery of Australia: "Eugene von Guérard"...
, Sydney Parkinson
Sydney Parkinson
Sydney Parkinson was a Scottish Quaker, botanical illustrator and natural history artist.Parkinson was employed by Joseph Banks to travel with him on James Cook's first voyage to the Pacific in 1768. Parkinson made nearly a thousand drawings of plants and animals collected by Banks and Daniel...
, Nicholas Chevalier
Nicholas Chevalier
Nicholas Chevalier was an Australian artist.-Early life:Chevalier was born in St Petersburg, Russia, the son of Louis Chevalier, who came from Vaud, Switzerland, and was overseer to the estates of the Prince de Wittgenstein in Russia. Nicholas' mother was Russian...
, the Port Jackson Painter
Port Jackson Painter
The Port Jackson Painter is a term used to describe one or more unknown watercolour artists working in Sydney, Australia from 1788 through to the 1790s. The painting are of plants, animals and life in Sydney. Many believe that they were the naval officers of the time who had both the time and the...
, Conrad Martens
Conrad Martens
Conrad Martens was an English-born landscape painter active in Australia from 1835.-Life and work:Conrad Martens' father was a merchant who came originally to London as Austrian Consul; Conrad was born in "Crutched Friars" near Tower Hill...
, John Lewin
John Lewin
John William Lewin was an English-born artist active in Australia from 1800. The first professional artist of the colony of New South Wales, he illustrated the earliest volumes of Australian natural history.-Early life:...
, Joseph Lycett
Joseph Lycett
Joseph Lycett was a portrait and miniature painter, active in Australia. Lycett specialised in topographical views of the major towns of Australia, and some of its more dramatic landscapes.-Early life:...
and Augustus Earle
Augustus Earle
Augustus Earle was a London-born travel artist. Unlike earlier artists who worked outside Europe and were employed on voyages of exploration or worked abroad for wealthy, often aristocratic patrons, Earle was able to operate quite independently - able to combine his lust for travel with an...
.
Fine copies of the most basic early works on Pacific and Australian discovery and settlement such as William Dampier
William Dampier
William Dampier was an English buccaneer, sea captain, author and scientific observer...
, James Cook
James Cook
Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...
, William Bligh
William Bligh
Vice Admiral William Bligh FRS RN was an officer of the British Royal Navy and a colonial administrator. A notorious mutiny occurred during his command of HMAV Bounty in 1789; Bligh and his loyal men made a remarkable voyage to Timor, after being set adrift in the Bounty's launch by the mutineers...
, the French explorers, Joseph Banks
Joseph Banks
Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS was an English naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. He took part in Captain James Cook's first great voyage . Banks is credited with the introduction to the Western world of eucalyptus, acacia, mimosa and the genus named after him,...
and Arthur Phillip
Arthur Phillip
Admiral Arthur Phillip RN was a British admiral and colonial administrator. Phillip was appointed Governor of New South Wales, the first European colony on the Australian continent, and was the founder of the settlement which is now the city of Sydney.-Early life and naval career:Arthur Phillip...
are to be found in the collection. The collection is especially rich in unusual Bounty
Mutiny on the Bounty
The mutiny on the Bounty was a mutiny that occurred aboard the British Royal Navy ship HMS Bounty on 28 April 1789, and has been commemorated by several books, films, and popular songs, many of which take considerable liberties with the facts. The mutiny was led by Fletcher Christian against the...
items.
By the late 1940s, Nan Kivell's collection had become substantial and was housed in various locations around England. In 1946, concerned about the safety and preservation of the collection, Nan Kivell began negotiations with representatives in London of the then Commonwealth National Library, the present day National Library of Australia
National Library of Australia
The National Library of Australia is the largest reference library of Australia, responsible under the terms of the National Library Act for "maintaining and developing a national collection of library material, including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the...
(NLA). He was adamant that the collection should stay together and should also be available for use. In 1949 the first consignment of pictures, books and other material reached Canberra
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
on loan to the Library, which then sought, over a decade, to bring the collection into Australian ownership.
Although Nan Kivell was unfailingly generous in honouring his commitment to allow the Library full use of his collection, he was cautious in defining any agreement concerning its ultimate disposition, or in stating terms of its donation or sale. In 1959, he sold his collection to the Australian government for ₤STG
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
70,000, a fraction of its true value. This modest price, combined with his later gifts to the NLA, established him as one of the country's greatest cultural benefactors. Despite a number of invitations, he never visited Australia and never returned to New Zealand. In 1953 he had donated hundreds of contemporary prints by British artists to New Zealand institutions for the fine arts.
Nan Kivell's collection totals over 15,000 items which includes more than 253 oils, 1,587 lithographs, 306 aquatints, 780 watercolours, some 5,000 books, and has exercised a substantial and enduring influence on Australasian historical and artistic scholarship.
In 1992, 32 works from the collection were transferred on long-term loan to the National Gallery of Australia
National Gallery of Australia
The National Gallery of Australia is the national art gallery of Australia, holding more than 120,000 works of art. It was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art gallery.- Establishment :...
.
Honours
On the recommendation of the Australian Government, Nan Kivell was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St GeorgeOrder of St Michael and St George
The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is an order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George, Prince Regent, later George IV of the United Kingdom, while he was acting as Prince Regent for his father, George III....
(CMG) in 1966. In 1976 he was made a Knight Bachelor
Knight Bachelor
The rank of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. It is the most basic rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised Orders of Chivalry...
, again by Australia. It has been suggested one of his motivations in selling his collection of Australiana at a fraction of its true value was to gain the knighthood he had long coveted for the purposes of social advancement.
On the recommendation of the Monarch and government of Denmark, Nan Kivell was also awarded the Order of Dannenbrog.
Death
He died on 7 June 1977 in PaddingtonPaddington
Paddington is a district within the City of Westminster, in central London, England. Formerly a metropolitan borough, it was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and was buried in the parish churchyard at West Lavington, Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
. He has been described as "an archetypal outsider - illegitimate, homosexual, self-educated and antipodean".