Denton Collection

Frank James Denton was born in Wellington in 1869 and worked as a successful commercial photographer in Whanganui from 1899 until 1927. In 1919, when the Sarjeant Gallery opened, Mayor Charles Mackay commissioned Denton to curate an international exhibition of art photography at the Sarjeant Gallery. In 1926 over 170 photographs gathered by Denton from around the world were exhibited. Subsequently 83 of the photographs were donated to the Gallery’s collection, making it the first Gallery in New Zealand to seriously collect photography. The works in the Denton collection are part of an international movement that dominated photography during the later 19th and early 20th centuries called Pictorialism, These photographers aimed to elevate the status of photography as a true art form rather than as a mere record of reality. As a result many Pictorialist prints were produced using technically complex and experimental methods. Following close examination by photographic conservator Mark Strange in 2017-2018 the works in this collection now have detailed media descriptions. This collection is of international significance as New Zealand's largest, finest and most comprehensive public collection of Pictorialist photographs.