The Naked Truth
/It took 70 years for ceramics to become part of The Suter’s permanent collection.
Why did it take so long? We weren’t alone in falling behind in our acknowledgment of ceramics. As a fine art gallery, as opposed to a museum or decorative art collection, we fell prey to the art versus craft debate. Art is intellectual, ceramics is domestic.
The first ceramic piece to enter the collection was The Naked Truth by Muriel Moody, which was purchased for The Suter in 1969. Potters such as Muriel defied the limitations put on their practice.
New Zealand Potter, volume 7, number 1, August 1964
Born in 1907 Muriel was the daughter of a surveyor and spent part of her childhood in Nelson and her parents actively encouraged her artistic aptitude. As a young woman she worked making fashion drawings with Rita Angus and Louise Henderson in Christchurch before travelling to the Middle East and Asia as part of the YWCA Welfare Services during World War Two.
Back in New Zealand she set up her kilns in Days Bay, Wellington where she created her Picasso influenced works. These figurative ceramics sculptures are raw and she was clear in her intention to be keep the ‘life of the clay’ and avoid it becoming ‘overworked’.
Her reputation led her to be asked to submit work as the guest artist at one of the Nelson Suter Art Society exhibitions in 1967. Locals were so impressed with the work that they called for it to enter the collection and Mirek Smíšek, a significant figure in the development of studio ceramics in New Zealand, spearheaded a crowd-funding campaign to purchase the work. By the time they gathered the required $400, 18 months after the initial exhibition, the work had been sold. But the commerce of art being what it is, Muriel agreed to make another Naked Truth for the gallery.
The Suter archive
The second Naked Truth has been part of our collection for the past 51 years and is a perfect example of the way in which art works continue to enter the collection. The Suter doesn’t have an acquisition fund that supports the purchase of art work, we instead rely on gifts, bequests and donations of funds towards acquiring artworks.
Muriel MOODY (New Zealander, b.1907, d.1991), The Naked Truth, 1969, glazed stoneware on concrete base. Purchased by subscription and presented by the Nelson Suter Art Society in 1969.
As the collection has evolved it has included more and more ceramics that could be considered domestic. Nelson was a haven for makers and some of the best ceramicists in New Zealand have lived here. As the art world caught up to this fact, so did The Suter, and more ceramics began entering our permanent collection. The collection’s growth owes much to the championing of the Suter’s first Director Austin Davies and it has grown exponentially over the last 50 years. Long may that continue!
Sarah McClintock
Suter Curator
If you want to learn more about Muriel Moody you can read her biography on Te Ara - Muriel Moody
