Irreplaceable Archive Of 19th & 20th Century NZ History Placed On Open Market 

An irreplaceable visual archive of New Zealand’s 19th and 20th century history worth millions of dollars has been placed on the open market - after almost a decade under foreign ownership.

More than one million vintage photographs form the collection known as The Fairfax Archives, the original photographs used in six regional New Zealand newspapers from 1840-2005.

The cache features some of New Zealand’s pivotal historical moments including images of the bombing of The Rainbow Warrior, the 1981 Springbok Tour protests, Sir Edmund Hillary’s ascent of Mt Everest, Auckland’s Queen St and 40,000 pictures of the All Blacks.

For nine years the collection was lost to New Zealand after Fairfax Media sent 1.4 million images to the United States to be digitised in 2013.

The company tasked with the project however was linked to sports memorabilia fraud, raided by the FBI and later bankrupted - with a U.S bank seizing the collection of Kiwi images as collateral on a US$14 million-dollar loan.

The archive was in danger of being destroyed before Daniel Miller of Duncan Miller Gallery in Los Angeles interceded. Along with the New Zealand collection there were a further two million images from the Sydney Morning Herald stored in the warehouse - which have also been put up for auction.

Miller says he purchased the original prints on the assumption an institution in each country would repatriate its national collection in its entirety. While some have been returned to relevant organisations there are still millions of photographs now available for purchase.

“We hired archivists to sort the photographs by hand and this took three and a half years, as there were four million photographs.

“More than 70 institutions have received photographs relevant to their public collections, however we had difficulty finding the best fit with an auction house in New Zealand to make these images available so we created a new auction platform, TheFairfaxArchives.co.nz where the images can be purchased,” he says.

Miller spent several months negotiating with the bank to secure the pictures. He is unable to disclose the sale price for the collection after signing a confidentiality agreement.

He says the images are likely to sell at auction between $100 and $400 each.

“These are cultural artefacts; the actual physical pieces used to create New Zealand's newspapers and illustrate the history of the times. While similar prints are in several library collections in New Zealand, this is the first time these vintage prints have been made available to the public on a dedicated platform,” he says.

Miller’s internationally recognised fine art photography gallery specialises in 20th and 21st century photographic works and holds one of the largest vintage photographic archives in the world.

The Los Angeles’ gallerist says he has a special interest in archive collections and there are some particularly special images in the New Zealand collection.

“I’m a big Sir Edmund Hillary fan, and the images taken of Sir Ed and Tenzing just after conquering Everest in 1953 are phenomenal,” he says.

Professor of History at AUT Dr Paul Moon says the significance of the archive should not be understated as it is one of the largest photographic collections that exists on New Zealand.

“These images trace the history of New Zealand and the news as it unfolds during a culturally significant period of time. While many of us are aware of the key punctuation points in our history, these photographs add a new layer as they capture the everyday,” he says.

Dr Moon says it's important that New Zealand maintains stewardship of our history and that new protocols be developed to identify and protect archives of this nature.

“As a nation we need to consider what we see as a priority when it comes to capturing our past. These images are really part of the architecture of our identity and that identity is not just built up on what’s happening today, it’s built up on layers of experiences.”

“I think we are extremely fortunate that someone has made the effort to secure these images as they could have disappeared down a digital black hole, where so many of our photographs end up these days.

“This archive is of huge historical importance because it covers such an extensive period of time and gives us a unique insight into the shaping of our national identity.

“There is a focus on living in the present which George Orwell referred to as the ‘eternal presence’ and there is a danger in that. Everything is captured in the moment and posted immediately on a social platform, but by living this way we become cast adrift from everything that went beforehand and lose a sense of connection,” he says.

Dr Moon says the timing of the auctions are particularly relevant and will be a useful resource with the formalisation of local history into the curriculum.

“New Zealand history is going to be compulsory in schools next year and so these images will be a wonderful resource for teachers wanting to invigorate their lessons,” he says.

Dr Moon says he is particularly interested in the images from Auckland and Queen Street and what they communicate to us about that time.

“We get to see changes in Auckland’s architecture, the cars people drove, the fashion. There are images of Queen Street from the 1930s with women wearing gloves. This suggests to us that going to Auckland central to shop was a major social event which you dressed for. It shows us the social expectation and standards, you can get all that information just from looking at an image and they are very special in that respect.

“There is an intimacy in these images as you get a sense of what life was like which you don’t get from a set of statistics or text.

“These images are a signpost they give us a sense of where we’ve been and what we’ve experienced and achieved. A photograph can prompt all sorts of reactions from amusement, nostalgia, ridicule, melancholy and a whole range of emotions.

“The early collections of images also highlight our uniqueness during that period. These days we are moving towards a more universal culture. If you go to most cities in the west, you’re going to see a McDonalds or a Starbucks. We dress the same, we listen to the same music, but 60 years ago that wasn’t so much the case. There were very distinct features about living in New Zealand, where our identity was more pronounced and when you look at these photographs you can see that,” he says.

Dr Moon says he hopes this collection inspires Kiwis to draw together remembering our shared history and experiences.

“There is also a lesson for us all in preserving our own memories and storing them appropriately.”

Other collections to be listed on the auction platform include anti-nuclear protests; the 1931 Hawkes Bay earthquake, poets, essayists, and novelists; railways, theatre and The Industrial Age.

Miller says the vintage images were captured by in-house and freelance photographers at the Dominion Post, Manawatu Standard, The Press, Southland Times, Sunday Star Times, Taranaki Daily News, Timaru Herald, and Waikato Times prior to publication in these titles.

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