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Cheryll Sotheran

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Dame Cheryll Sotheran
DNZM
Born
Cheryll Beatrice Sotheran

(1945-10-11)11 October 1945
Stratford, New Zealand
Died30 December 2017(2017-12-30) (aged 72)
Auckland, New Zealand
OccupationMuseum professional

Dame Cheryll Beatrice Sotheran DNZM (11 October 1945 – 30 December 2017) was a New Zealand museum professional.[1] She was the founding chief executive of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and was credited with the successful completion of the museum, considered the largest international museum project of the 1990s.[1]

Early life and education[edit]

Sotheran was born on 11 October 1945 into a large Roman Catholic family in Stratford, a farming town in New Zealand's Taranaki province.[2][3] She was educated at St Mary's College in Auckland and graduated from secondary teachers' college in 1968. She went on to complete a Masters of Arts in English at the University of Auckland in 1969, then undertook further study in the Art History department at that university.[3]

Career[edit]

Exterior view of Te Papa Tongarewa in 2016

Sotheran lectured in Art History at Auckland University and while in the city, Sotheran was also a founding member of the Feminist Art Network, working with artists and curators who included Juliet Batten, Elizabeth Eastmond, Alexa Johnston, Claudia Pond Eyley, Priscilla Pitts and Carole Shepheard.[4]  As Sotheran put it, “We knew as women we had a choice of working against the flow or simply going with the flow”.[5] Throughout the 1980s, Sotheran was also a regular writer and critic for the Auckland Star and Art New Zealand. In 1983 she was invited to write the lead article for Art New Zealand’s special issue on women artists in which she considered whether their work would have to first take a separatist position before becoming integrated with mainstream art.[6] Sotheran pulled no punches critiquing male critics and their ‘trivializing’ of women’s art and she outlined how women artist were pushing back. [Lucy Lippard’s] dream of equality seems no closer, and the need to be distinctive in order to be effective still prevails.’[7] Writer Peter Ireland wrote of Sotheran’s art criticism that she had the ‘ability to sense a new direction and formulate her hunches crisply…. always at her best when she analysed the sometimes difficult work of an artist she esteemed.’[8] During this time she also became increasingly interested in art museums and exhibitions and in 1986 she was appointed as the fifth Director of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth.[9] In 1985, with Luit Bieringa, director of the National Art Gallery, she curated New Zealand’s first participation in the Art Gallery of New South Wales regular exhibition Perspecta 85[10] and the following year she curated Not a Dog Show: Tom Kreisler for the Govett-Brewster.[11] Increasingly involved in arts management, many of the major exhibitions she presented at the Govett-Brewster were curated by independent curators, most notably Robert Leonard’s Pākehā Mythology (1986)[12] and Wystan Curnow’s Putting the Land on the Map: Art and Cartography in New Zealand Art Since 1840 (1989).[13] Alongside her administrative work Sotheran also formed close relationships with local Iwi forming ideas of community that would be critical to her thinking in the future.[14] In 1989, Sotheran was appointed director of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. She brought with her from the Govett-Brewster a sense of the contemporary that shaped both the exhibition programme and purchasing for the collection. Sotheran was also responsible for setting up the relocation of the gallery from Logan Park to a central city site in the Octagon. Dunedin art historian and lecturer Peter Stupples recalls Sotheran’s arrival as “life-changing for the gallery.’[15]

In 1992 Sotheran was appointed as the founding chief executive of the nascent Te Papa, created from the merger of New Zealand's National Museum and National Art Gallery in a new building on the Wellington waterfront.[3] The construction of Te Papa was the biggest international museum project of the 1990s and included moving a hotel on wheels to enable the museum to be built on its waterfront site.[16][17] The opening of Te Papa in February 1998 was completed on time and on budget.[16] A documentary by Anna Cottrell and Gaylene Preston, Getting to Our Place, recorded the process of developing the museum on a new museological principle of biculturalism.[18]

Sotheran weathered several controversies during her tenure at Te Papa, including ongoing criticism of the display of the national art collection and significant public protest when Tania Kovats' art work Virgin in a Condom was exhibited at the museum in an exhibition of work by the Young British Artists in 1998.[19][20]

Sotheran resigned from Te Papa for health reasons in 2002.[3] She subsequently acted as sector director of creative industries at New Zealand Trade and Enterprise,[21] where she was responsible for the strategic development of the creative industries across all sectors in the New Zealand economy.[22]

Honours and awards[edit]

Sotheran was awarded the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal in 1990, and the New Zealand Suffrage Centennial Medal in 1993.[2] In the 1999 New Year Honours, she was appointed a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to museum administration.[23] She received a distinguished alumni award from the University of Auckland, also in 1999.[24]

Death[edit]

In 2013, Sotheran suffered a stroke. She battled health issues until her death in Auckland on 30 December 2017, from undisclosed causes, aged 72.[1]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c "Te Papa founding chief executive Dame Cheryll Sotheran dies after long illness". Stuff. 31 December 2017. Retrieved 31 December 2017.
  2. ^ a b Taylor, Alister; Coddington, Deborah (1994). Honoured by the Queen – New Zealand. Auckland: New Zealand Who's Who Aotearoa. p. 345. ISBN 0-908578-34-2.
  3. ^ a b c d NZPA (7 June 2002). "Te Papa's 'Mama' in shock health resignation". New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 27 December 2015.
  4. ^ "Feminist Art Networkers 1982 – 1988".
  5. ^ "Dame Cheryll Sotheran: A Tribute". The Big Idea. 25 January 2018. Retrieved 8 June 2024.
  6. ^ "Editorial". Art New Zealand (26). Autumn 1983.
  7. ^ Sotheran, Cheryll (Autumn 1983). "Replacing Women in Art History". Art New Zealand (26).
  8. ^ Ireland, Peter (24 January 2018). "Dame Cheryll Sotheran 11 Oct. 1945 Dec. 2017". EyeContact. Retrieved 8 June 2024.
  9. ^ "Dame Cheryll Sotheran 11 October 1945 - 30 December 2017". University of Auckland. 5 January 2018. Retrieved 8 June 2024.
  10. ^ "N.Z. perspective for Aust". The Press (Christchurch). 23 October 1985. p. 24.
  11. ^ "Tom Kreisler and His Dancing Dogs". Retrieved 8 June 2024.
  12. ^ "On Curating". Retrieved 8 June 2024.
  13. ^ "Putting the Land on the Map: Art and Cartography in New Zealand Art Since 1840". Retrieved 8 June 2024.
  14. ^ Walker, Tim; Thompson, Judith; Reynolds, Cheryl (January 2018). "Cheryll Sotheran a Tribute". Big Idea. Retrieved 8 June 2024.
  15. ^ Frost, Rebecca (8 September 2022). "Achievement Over Controversy". Otago Daily Times. Retrieved 8 June 2024.
  16. ^ a b "Government thanks Dame Cheryll Sotheran". Scoop.co.nz. Retrieved 27 December 2015.
  17. ^ "Founding Te Papa chief executive Dame Cheryll Sotheran dies". New Zealand Herald. 31 December 2017. ISSN 1170-0777. Retrieved 31 December 2017.
  18. ^ "Getting to Our Place". NZ on Screen. Retrieved 27 December 2015.
  19. ^ O'Neil, Andrea (21 March 2015). "'Virgin in a Condom' artwork provoked violence month after Te Papa opening". DominionPost. Retrieved 27 December 2015.
  20. ^ Walrond, Carl. "Atheism and secularism – An increasingly secular country". Te Ara – The online encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 27 December 2015.
  21. ^ Dame Cheryll Sotheran DNZM, Showcasing New Zealand, Women in Film & Television (WIFT)
  22. ^ Hewitson, Michele (20 April 2007). "Dame Cheryll Sotheran on life after Te Papa". New Zealand Herald. ISSN 1170-0777. Retrieved 31 December 2017.
  23. ^ "New Year honours list 1999". Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. 31 December 1998. Retrieved 31 August 2019.
  24. ^ "Famous past students". University of Auckland. Retrieved 27 December 2015.
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