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

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