Nerli: An Italian Painter in the South Pacific

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Category: Book

Nerli: An Italian Painter in the South Pacific by Michael Dunn

Title Nerli: An Italian Painter in the South Pacific
Author Michael Dunn
Editor {{{editor}}}
Year 2005
Publisher Auckland University Press
ISBN 9781869403355
Language English
Format Hardback
Geographic reference Dunedin, Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch, Australia, Samoa
Time reference
Online resource no
Subcategory {{{subcategory}}}
Topic Italian painters, Italian artist, Nerli, Artisti italiani in Nuova Zelanda


You can find the book here


Nerli: An Italian Painter in the South Pacific is the first major study of the Italian painter Girolamo Pieri Nerli, who spent the last two decades of the nineteenth century in Australia and New Zealand and is best known as a teacher of Frances Hodgkins. Girolamo Pieri Pecci Ballati Nerli, commonly known as Girolamo Pieri Nerli or Girolamo Nerli, was born in Siena, Italy, on 21 February 1860. Girolamo studied art in Florence and was a younger member of the Italian Macchiaioli school, the 'patch painters', an Italian movement anticipating French Impressionism. He went to Australia in 1885 and then to New Zealand in 1889, to Dunedin for the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition, at which several of his paintings were shown as part of the New South Wales Loan Collection. He returned to Australia in 1890, and in 1892 visited Samoa where he painted the well-known portrait of R. L. Stevenson, now in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery (in fact there are two portraits of Stevenson by Nerli listed in the Gallery website). In 1893 he returned to Dunedin, set himself up as a private art teacher and was elected to the council of the Otago Art Society in 1893. In February 1894, with J. D. Perrett and L. W. Wilson, opened the Otago Art Academy. In the face of competition from his classes the Dunedin School of Art and Design hired Nerli as teacher of painting in February 1895. Nerli's private academy closed later that year, although apparently he continued to take private pupils.

Late in 1896 he left Dunedin suddenly. He stayed briefly in Wellington, then went on to Auckland where he opened a studio and exhibited at the Auckland Society of Arts' annual exhibition in April 1897. On 5 March 1898, at the registrar's office in Christchurch, he married Marie Cecilia Josephine Barron. Immediately after their marriage they sailed for Australia, where they settled in Sydney and then Melbourne. They never returned to New Zealand. He retained some connection with New Zealand, sending back a number of paintings for exhibition. He died, in Genoa on 24 June 1926.

Art work by Nerli can be found at the Auckland Art Gallery Nerli is represented in the National Gallery of Australia, most of the Australian state galleries and the principal public collections of New Zealand.

Biographies of Nerli can be found in: Te Ara - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa - Museum of New Zealand

An article by G.H. Brown, entitled 'Signor Nerli the painter' published in the Auckland City Art Gallery Quarterly No: 45 (1969) can be downloaded by clicking here (pages 3-15)