A forgotten collector: Archdeacon Smythe and his collection of British watercolours in New Zealand

Abstract

Francis Henry Dumville Smythe (1873–1966), a humble clergyman from England, spent a lifetime amassing his private collection of British watercolours. During the 1950s, he decided to gift the bulk of them to two art institutions in New Zealand – Dunedin Public Art Gallery and the National Art Gallery in Wellington. They were welcomed with open arms and celebrated as “the finest collection of water colour pictures in the Southern Hemisphere.” However, they soon fell out of favour as shifting aesthetic tastes and calls for a new national identity dominated the art scene in New Zealand during the latter half of the twentieth century. This paper will examine Smythe’s collecting habits and tastes in art, as well as the formation, gifting and reception of the collection in Wellington and Dunedin. It is based on two chapters from the author’s PhD thesis “A Matter of Taste: The Fate of the Archdeacon Smythe Collection of British Watercolours in New Zealand” (2021).