Design School still top draw after 125 years

A century and a quarter of art and design in Wellington is being celebrated next week as the School of Design based at Massey University's College of Creative Arts marks its 125th anniversary.

The official birthday on April 13 is the precursor to a year of events celebrating the milestone, with the highlight being an exhibition of design, showcasing some of the people and products associated with the school, to be staged in the Museum Building on Massey’s Wellington campus in September.

The school traces its history back to the original School of Design set up by Arthur Riley in 1886. Since then it has been known variously as the School of Design, the Wellington Technical College and the Wellington Polytechnic School of Design; some of this history is shared with Wellington High School.

Birthday celebrations on Wednesday include the presentation of the inaugural John Drawbridge Scholarship. It is named for the former design tutor and respected visual artist, who died in 2005.

School of Fine Arts senior lecturer Simon Morris says the award, worth $1000, is presented to a student judged to have achieved excellence in a life drawing paper. Drawbridge’s wife, sculptor Tanya Ashken, will present the award to illustrations major Emma Williams. The scholarship has been funded through sales of the book John Drawbridge and a percentage of the artist’s prints sold, via interest from a memorial trust fund established in his name. The book was published in 2008, the year before he was posthumously inducted into the College of Creative Arts Hall of Fame.

Drawbridge enjoyed a 50-year career working in a variety of media, including intaglio prints, oils, watercolours and large-scale murals, including the three-dimensional aluminium mural in Parliament’s Beehive. In the 1960s he designed and created a 15-metre mural on 10 large canvas panels for New Zealand House in London, with which generations of New Zealanders have become familiar. Drawbridge’s passion for art and education drew him home in 1964 to teach printmaking and creative design at the Wellington School of Design. He retired in 1990.

The birthday celebration launch, to be led by College Pro Vice-Chancellor Professor Sally Morgan, also includes further details about the exhibition later in the year and the Hall of Fame Alumni Gala dinner to be held as part of the College’s BLOW creative arts festival in November.