Collect: obsessive, passionate, visionary
Human beings are driven to collect. From grand collections of priceless art treasures, rare books and manuscripts to humble collections of butter wrappers or photographs of celebrities, the act of collecting is central to our culture.
Whether obsessive, passionate or visionary, collecting plays an important role in our personal identities. A collection of objects is a powerful thing, telling others who we think we are and who we would like to be. Collecting is a serious game.
Collect: obsessive, passionate, visionary is a social history of collecting from the Alexander Turnbull Library, one of the premier national collections in Aotearoa, founded by the generous bequest of Alexander Turnbull in 1918. The Turnbull is a rich source of fact and fiction about the history of collecting in this country – the characters, crooks, citizens, scholars and gentlemen (and women) whose lives and passions become visible through the objects they collected.
Collect is also a study of the Alexander Turnbull Library as an institution charged with developing a collection on behalf of the nation. From its origins as a haven for scholars and gentlemen who collected our European heritage, the Turnbull has become a repository for all kinds of culture that provide access to the lives and experiences of New Zealanders – from tangata whenua to tangata tiriti, from the oldest settler to the most recent immigrant.
Welcome
to the online excerpt of Collect, a story of individuals
and the nation told through a collection that has been fed by obsession,
passion and vision.
Dr Damian Skinner
Exhibition curator
Robert Thorburn Turnbull, EF Hadfield and Alexander Horsburgh Turnbull at the Turnbull home.
This poster demonstrates 1930s Wellington theatregoers’ taste for the bizarre and outrageous.
When Alexander Turnbull purchased this aquatint by James Cleveley it had been titled incorrectly on its frame; the scene actually depicts Tahiti.
The Alexander Turnbull Library now collects digital images like this one, in addition to its large holdings of traditional photographs.
This butter wrapper is one of about 70 in pristine condition that were donated to the Alexander Turnbull Library in 1997.
This flyer from the Turnbull Library’s Ephemera Collection documents the execution of a 20-year-old English farm labourer who stabbed a boy to death in 1869.
One of many important Cook relics in the Turnbull Library, this medallion originally belonged to Alexander Turnbull’s brother.
This painting by Augustus Earle is one of the most important works of art in the Alexander Turnbull Library’s collections.
This manuscript from the Polynesian Society collections is one of many records of Māori life that were written by Māori elders.
Boethius’s De Musica, a 12th-century illuminated manuscript, is the oldest book in New Zealand.
This map of New Zealand, from the collection of Kenneth Athol Webster, includes annotations by Bishop Selwyn.
Mark Twain’s inscription in the front of this book makes it particularly special to a collector.
Thanks to Legal Deposit, the National Library holds everything that is published in New Zealand, including magazines such as the Women’s Weekly.
