“Gretchen Albrecht was often at the Sarjeant back when Bill Milbank was Director of the Sarjeant and Juliette Handley was the Chairman of the Sarjeant Gallery Trust. There was a great deal of glamour and vibrancy then with many high profile and eclectic groups of guests and we look forward to recreating those days and having people migrate back to us when we open the doors of the redeveloped Sarjeant Gallery in late 2023.

While I love the painting The Fire and the Rose because of its’ spectacular colour, I have chosen this piece of Gretchen’s “Punishment (Tristan and Iseult) because of the image depicting this work shows it hanging proudly in the Sarjeant’s Dome, the inner womb of our neo Classical Greek Orthodox masonry building which commands Category 1 status with Heritage New Zealand. This space originally housed a copy of the famous Greek Wrestlers marble sculpture (which for many young schoolchildren like me back in the early 60’s was our lasting first impression of the Sarjeant Collection!) The Dome has since been used for many more auspicious exhibitions such as that of Bill Culbert and his stunning light installation. Because we believe the Dome is the most special place within the Gallery we are honouring our Foundation Partners in this space as they were the ones that believed in the Sarjeant Reconstruction Project from the outset and invested significant funds to kick start our capital raising for this nationally important project.”
- Nicola Williams MNZM, Chairman of the Sarjeant Gallery Trust Board, for the July 2021 instalment of the My Choice exhibition series.