Malcolm Armstrong Harrison (3 September 1941 – 2 November 2007) was a New Zealand clothing designer and textile artist.

Career

Born in

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon River / ...

, Harrison started his career as a window dresser with the D.I.C department store in his home town, while taking night classes in patternmaking. In the 1960s he worked as a clothing designer in Auckland. In 1961, aged 19, he was a finalist in the New Zealand Gown of the Year competition; in 1962 he won second place in the competition with an embroidered and beaded dress called ''Scheherazade''. Harrison worked with Auckland fashion designer Colin Cole before opening his own boutique, Jasper Johnsons Jamboree, in Takapuna, and developed a reputation for his gowns, bespoke suits and bridal wear. In the 1970s, Harrison shifted his practice from clothing production to quiltmaking, beginning a successful career as a textile artist. His early works were quilts made from dress fabric scraps. His first quilt exhibition was shown in 1979 at the Denis Cohn Gallery in Auckland. These works "reflected fabric art trends of the time - traditional American quilting techniques depicted subjects including Kiwi aviation pioneer Richard Pearse". Harrison credited Denis Cohn for giving his artistic career a major boost. Cohn introduced Harrison to Wellington art dealer Janne Land, who showed his work regularly until his death. Throughout his textile career, Harrisons's work ranged from large-scale quilts to smaller needlepoint canvases and simple works stitched on cloth. Textile historian Ann Packer recognises Harrison as “the man who pioneered quilting as an art form in New Zealand...a storyteller par excellence who creates his narratives in stitch.”

Major works and commissions

''The Family'' is a popular and well-known collection of 35 dolls crafted by Harrison over 30 years and exhibited widely throughout New Zealand. ''The Family'' was first exhibited at

The Dowse Art Museum The Dowse Art Museum is a municipal art gallery in Lower Hutt, New Zealand. Opening in 1971 in the Lower Hutt CBD, The Dowse occupies a stand-alone building adjacent to other municipal facilities. The building was completely remodelled in 2 ...

in 1987, and was re-exhibited several times, including in 2005 and 2014. In 1994, the Parliamentary Service Commission appointed Harrison to design and oversee the creation of two large-scale works for Parliament Buildings in Wellington. The two works, ''These are Matters of Pride'' and ''Whanaungatanga'' (Relationships), combined

Māori weaving Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...

traditions with European embroidery practices and drew upon the skills of four Māori weavers and over 700 embroiderers. They took two years to complete. Other commissions include ''Oceania'', located in the Bank of New Zealand tower in Queen Street in Auckland, and work in the North Shore City Council Chambers.

Recognition

In 1992, Harrison represented New Zealand at the Fibre Triennial in

Łódź Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of canti ...

, Poland. In 2004 Harrison was awarded the inaugural Creative New Zealand Craft/Object Art Fellowship, worth $65,000. He created a new body of work as recipient of the award, drawing inspiration from

Francisco Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and ...

's etching, ''

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters ''The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters'' or ''The Dream of Reason Produces Monsters'' ( es, El sueño de la razón produce monstruos) is an aquatint by the Spanish painter and printmaker Francisco Goya. Created between 1797 and 1799 for the , it ...

'' (c. 1799). The works were shown at an exhibition titled ''Minus Reason'' at Auckland gallery Objectspace in 2005.

Legacy

Since Harrison's death on Waiheke Island in 2007, a number of exhibitions have been staged surveying his work or linking his career to that of other artists. Objectspace staged a memorial exhibition, ''Requiem'', in 2008. ''Malcolm Harrison: A celebration'', a touring survey exhibition of Harrison's work, showed at the Waiheke Community Art Gallery in 2017. The exhibition included quilt works, tapestries, assemblages, small sculpture, works on paper, poetry, and illustrations and texts for children's books. In 2018 The Dowse Art Museum will show ''Sleeping Arrangements'', an exhibition that brings a selection of Harrison's quilts together with works by three other artists of different generations to his own: Grant Lingard (1961–1995), Zac Langdon-Pole (b. 1988), and Micheal McCabe (b. 1994). Harrison's work is held in the collections of

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is New Zealand's national museum and is located in Wellington. ''Te Papa Tongarewa'' translates literally to "container of treasures" or in full "container of treasured things and people that spring fr ...

and

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harrison, Malcolm 1941 births 2007 deaths 20th-century New Zealand textile artists New Zealand fashion designers People from Christchurch 21st-century New Zealand textile artists 20th-century New Zealand male artists 21st-century New Zealand male artists

Career

Major works and commissions

Recognition

Legacy

Further reading

References