Aerocool Rescue Helicopter gala auction offers diamond ring, signed McCaw jersey
To date, the helicopter has carried out 5632 missions around the coastal Bay of Plenty.
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Newsroom
12 hours ago
- Newsroom
Book of the Week: Art sticks it to Ruth Richardson
Over four decades, commencing in the early 1960s and on a librarian's salary, Wellington-based autodidact Walter Cook amassed a world-class collection of late 19th and early 20th century ceramics and glass which he donated to the National Collection, soon to become Te Papa, in 1992. Cook's intention in gifting his collection of nearly 400 pieces to the nation was not without political intent. In a 2012 RNZ interview, he described the gift as 'the way I, an ordinary, powerless person, could give the fingers to Ruth Richardson and every value she stood for – that neo-liberal atomised self-interest. Because I don't believe in that at all, and our cultural institutions stand as evidence that there is community and there is common purpose'. His collection is documented across 400 pages of meticulously catalogued, referenced and illustrated applied arts, in Towards Modernism: The Walter Cook Collection at Te Papa by Justine Olsen. It's an elegant love letter to the joys one collector found, and chose to share, among the forms and colours found in Art Nouveau glass, Scandinavian teapots and biscuit jars by the irrepressible British designer Susie Cooper (1902–1995). Olsen, Te Papa Tongarewa's curator of Decorative Art and Design, explores the works of iconic designers in Cook's collection – Cooper and Clarice Cliff, William De Morgan, Keith Murray, Christopher Dresser and Royal Copenhagen stars Inge-Lise Koefoed and Berthe Jessen. Olsen deftly teases out wider contexts and readings for many of the decorative pieces. Among her favourites is 'a tall Tenera Vase by Danish designer Berthe Jessen in 1963 … It's a delicate yet lush design. The vase encapsulates the story of how Royal Copenhagen developed a fresh approach to design by hiring young women artists straight from art schools across Scandinavia. It has that art to industry approach'. Cook, born in 1941, was raised in a fertile theological and creative environment. His father, George, was an Anglican curate and his mother, Hinehauone Coralie Cameron, was a talented artist and printmaker. The Te Papa collection holds a number of her woodblock prints: they are reminiscent of those by leading mid-century figures such as A Lois White and Adele Younghusband. Young Walter's fascination with collections and museums was ignited as a four-year-old after a visit to the Wanganui Museum with his mother to see 'a cabinet of curiosities'. He 'returned home and started my own museum, and from then on, museums became places of pilgrimage – sites of an ultimate reality to which I could only aspire'. As a teenager he frequented Wellington's second-hand stores and bookshops, building his knowledge and developing an early love of English Art Nouveau artist Aubrey Beardsley and the philosophy of poet and designer William Morris, godfather of the English Arts and Crafts movement. Cook began collecting Art Nouveau as 'a way of touching the reality of Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites in far off New Zealand'. His first purchase in 1961 was a Tudric hot-water jug by Liberty & Co dating to around 1903 from the shop Gallery 36 on Vivian Street, Wellington. This, he said, 'initiated me into the addictive habit and thrill of hunting quarry in secondhand shops'. From this point Cook the collector worked his way through the 20th century as design trends became evermore progressive and future-facing, racing towards the modernism and the utopian optimism suggested by the book's title. From the Empire-infused fascinations with Japonisme and the classical forms of Royal Doulton and Moorcroft to the fusion of Medieval fancy and Art Nouveau of Tudric pewter and Minton 'Secessionist' ware, Cook looked to more flamboyant movements that flowered in the Art Deco years after WWI when Susie Cooper, Charlotte Rhead and Truda Carter, along with Clarice Cliff, were leading figures in the design world. New Zealand design enters the picture in the second half of Towards Modernism in the form of the creamy and minimalist forms of Crown Lynn vases by Ernest Shufflebotham, which continue to be highly sought after by 21st century collectors. Today much of this collecting has moved online, and that cagey, gregarious milieu of collectors and specialist dealers known as the trade is now defunct. Towards Modernism acts as their requiem, following the collector's quest among the shelves of tony antique dealers and bric-a-brac emporiums alike for a prize piece of Minton or an unusual example of Scandinavian design at Paddy's Market or a long-departed 'Curiosity' shop. Collector-centric shops, happy hunting grounds for Cook and his cohort, such as Odds & Ends, Mr Smiles and Willbank Court Antiques, from whom Cook acquired a fine high-fired Ruskin Pottery sang de boeuf (bull's blood) squat vase (1912) in 1985, emerge as vital arms of the transmission of information, enthusiasm, gossip and referrals. In 1972, Cook paid just $3 for the lovely Watcombe Pottery Palm pot with its distinctive shimmering green glaze from Marsden Antiques in Wellington, one of the few originals still trading, now in Featherston in the Wairarapa. Cook spotted another rare treasure in 1983 in a junk shop on Ponsonby Road. It was a Sea Urchin form double-spout jug by Christopher Dresser from the 1880s. Cook paid $18 for it; it is now valued at around $3000. In my experience as a collector, and in engaging with them as fellow travellers and clients over a decade as managing director of an auction house, these singular individuals are united by a desire to wring sense from the conveyor belt of the quotidian and divine. They are driven by the taxonomic urge: the need to comprehend and order the culture around them. The most dedicated and inspired, such as Cook, end up making good on those aspirations. Towards Modernism: The Walter Cook Collection at Te Papa by Justine Olsen (Te Papa Press, $75) is available in bookstores nationwide. The full review by Hamish Coney was published at the indispensable literary site edited by Paula Morris, New Zealand Review of Books.
Otago Daily Times
a day ago
- Otago Daily Times
Scathing report finds Titan sub disaster was preventable
The catastrophic implosion of the Titan submersible that killed five people in 2023 could have been prevented, a US Coast Guard investigative board has found, calling the vessel's safety culture and operational practices 'critically flawed.' The Titan vanished during a descent to the Titanic wreck on a tourist expedition, losing contact with its support ship. After a tense four-day search, its shattered remains were discovered strewn across the seabed 488 metres (1600 feet) from the bow of the legendary ocean liner that sank in 1912, claiming more than 1500 lives. OceanGate, the United States-based company that managed the tourist submersible, suspended all operations after the incident. A company spokesperson said on Tuesday said it again offered its deepest condolences to the families of those who died "and directed its resources fully towards cooperating with the Coast Guard's inquiry through its completion." The chair of the US Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation, Jason Neubauer, said the accident was preventable. "There is a need for stronger oversight and clear options for operators who are exploring new concepts outside of the existing regulatory framework," he said in a statement with the release of the 300-page report. Chloe Nargeolet, whose father, French oceanographer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, died on the submersible, said she was satisfied with the investigation. "The OceanGate boss didn't do his job properly and obviously my father didn't know any of that," she said. "It was not random or bad luck, it came from something. It could have been avoided.' The board determined that the primary contributing factors were OceanGate's "inadequate design, certification, maintenance and inspection process for the Titan ." It also cited "a toxic workplace culture at OceanGate," an inadequate regulatory framework for submersibles and other novel vessels, and an ineffective whistleblower process. The report added "for several years preceding the incident, OceanGate leveraged intimidation tactics, allowances for scientific operations, and the company's favourable reputation to evade regulatory scrutiny." The board found that OceanGate failed to investigate and address known hull anomalies following its 2022 Titanic expedition. It said data from Titan's real-time monitoring system should have been analysed and acted on during that expedition. It also criticized OceanGate for failing to properly store the Titan before the 2023 Titanic expedition. The report faulted the absence of a timely Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigation into a 2018 OceanGate whistleblower's complaint combined with a lack of government cooperation, calling them a missed opportunity and added "early intervention may have resulted in OceanGate pursuing regulatory compliance or abandoning their plans."
NZ Herald
2 days ago
- NZ Herald
Aerocool Rescue Helicopter gala auction offers diamond ring, signed McCaw jersey
The critical work of the Tauranga-based Aerocool Rescue Helicopter team will be celebrated and supported at a charity auction and gala. To date, the helicopter has carried out 5632 missions around the coastal Bay of Plenty.
