Hall of Fame Inductees Join Illustrious List
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Three illustrious alumni from the University's College of Creative Arts and its forerunner institutions have been named as the latest inductees into the college's Hall of Fame.
Graphic
designer Grant Alexander, photographer Jane Ussher and
(posthumously) painter and print-maker John Drawbridge will
be formally inducted at a special ceremony on November 20 as
the final event of the BLOW 09 creative arts
festival.
Instigated in 2007, the Hall of Fame
recognises outstanding contributions through art and design
to New Zealand's economy, reputation and national identity
by former students or staff of the college and its
predecessors the School of Art, Wellington Technical College
and the Wellington Polytechnic School of Design.
Mr
Alexander graduated from the polytechnic in 1969 with a
diploma in graphic design, made his name as a designer of
books and magazines, and then as co-founder of Designworks.
The multi-award-winning company was one of the first major
strategic design practices in New Zealand, and has offices
in Auckland, Sydney and Wellington. He subsequently
established creative design company Studio Alexander in
Kingsland, Auckland, with his daughter Kate.
Mr
Drawbridge (1930-2005) was one of one of Mr Alexander's
tutors and one of New Zealand’s most defining visual
artists, for his influence on generations of young designers
and his own work. He enjoyed a 50-year career working in a
variety of media, including intaglio prints, oils,
watercolours and large-scale murals. These include the Expo
'70 mural for Osaka, Japan (since rebuilt in Wellington's
National Library), and the three-dimensional aluminium mural
in Parliament's Beehive in 1980. In the 1960s he designed
and created the 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.
Photographer Jane Ussher’s career
flourished after training in photography at the Wellington
Polytechnic in the mid-1970s. In 1977 she was appointed
chief photographer at the New Zealand Listener and for the
next 30 years photographed almost every major figure
including Sir Edmund Hillary, Helen Clark, Janet Frame and
Jonah Lomu, while documenting the changing social and
political landscape of New Zealand. Since last year she has
worked as a freelance photographer in New Zealand, the
Antarctic and the Pacific.
College Associate Pro
Vice-Chancellor Dr Claire Robinson says: "We are celebrating
these great alumni for their role in visually defining and
reflecting upon ourselves as nation, and for what they have
contributed to New Zealand’s economic, intellectual and
cultural growth. Our students today truly stand upon the
shoulders of giants.”
Previous Hall of Fame
inductees include the late Len Lye (artist and filmmaker),
Richard Taylor (special effects designer at Weta Workshop),
Rebecca Taylor (New York-based fashion designer), the late
Gordon Walters (artist and graphic designer), Mark
Pennington (Formway industrial designer) and Kate Sylvester
(fashion designer).
Portraits of the latest inductees
will join images of recipients already mounted on the wall
above the foyer of the Old Museum Building, Buckle St,
Wellington.
ENDS