The Wrestlers finds temporary home at Davis Library

Published on 25 March 2014

25 March 2014

The Wrestlers, one of the most well-known works in the Sarjeant Gallery Te Whare o Rehua Whanganui collection, has temporarily moved to the Davis Library.

Senior Curator Greg Anderson said the move is one of the first steps in temporarily relocating the collection to allow for earthquake strengthening and redevelopment of the Queens Park building to take place. The Sarjeant Gallery closed to the public on March 2 and will reopen to the public in temporary premises at 38 Taupo Quay on May 24.

Moving the marble sculpture was a major undertaking involving a hoist which transferred the work in three parts (the plinth base, the vertical section of the plinth and The Wrestlers sculpture) under the care of about five people.

“As part of the developed design process for the redevelopment project, drilling for core samples is required,” Mr Anderson said.

“This work will be very noisy and dusty so the gallery spaces had to be cleared. The Wrestlers is one of the works that needed to be moved and because we wanted it still to be available to the public, it was decided to relocate it to the Davis Library. This is only the second time in nearly 100 years that The Wrestlers has been outside the Sarjeant Gallery building - it was displayed at the National Museum once.

“The bust of Henry Sarjeant, whose generous bequest funded the building of the Sarjeant, has also been moved and is on public display at the Alexander Library.

“The collection store at the Sarjeant has been sealed off and everything remaining there will be safe from dust during the drilling process.

“Staff have been relocated to various Wanganui District Council offices until the Sarjeant on the Quay premises are ready for us and the collection.

“We have a plan in place for moving the collection as soon as the premises are ready and we are looking forward to being part of the vibrant riverfront area until we can move back to the Sarjeant’s home in Queens Park.”

About The Wrestlers

Raffaello Romanelli (Italian, b.1856, d.1928)
The Wrestlers
white marble mounted on green marble pedestal
Collection of the Sarjeant Gallery Te Whare o Rehua Whanganui
1915/2/1

The Wrestlers, a three-quarter sized copy of the Greek original from the 3rd Century BC, was purchased from the studio of Raffaello Romanelli in Florence in 1914 by Mr and Mrs John and Ellen Neame for the Sarjeant Gallery.

Ellen Neame (née Stewart) had previously been married to Henry Sarjeant, who died in 1912 leaving a substantial trust fund to the then Wanganui Borough Council for the establishment of an art gallery. Ellen and John Neame played a substantial role on the Sarjeant Gallery committee that initially saw the building come to fruition and then purchasing work for the Gallery’s collection.

John Armstrong Neame wrote to the Wanganui Town Clerk from the Hotel Berchielli, Florence, on March 26, 1914: “We have also secured for the gallery a very beautiful full-sized marble copy of the celebrated group called The Wrestlers. This is perhaps one of the six most famous works of Greek art in the world. We have been at very great pains to secure this and examine the studio where it was made, and are taking steps to have a history of the original and of the copy prepared to place before the Borough Council and the Committee of the Sarjeant Gallery . . .”

A three-quarter sized marble copy of a Greek original does not attract such high praise in New Zealand today, but the work held a central position in the Dome of the Gallery for sixty years. In 1979 the artist Billy Apple proposed that The Wrestlers be moved. At the time the proposition was controversial and unpopular but the decision was made to move the sculpture and Billy Apple’s work Towards the Centre which documented the intervention took their place.

Despite being removed from their central position, The Wrestlers have remained on permanent view at the Sarjeant Gallery until March 2014 when they were moved to the Davis Library for temporary display as part of the Sarjeant Gallery redevelopment project.