Tom Taylor (sculptor)
Thomas John Taylor, better known as Tom Taylor, was a New Zealand sculptor and educator.
He spent his life in Christchurch
and his career as an influential lecturer at the University of Canterbury.
Taylor studied architecture then sculpture at UC's predecessor.
At the UC School of Fine Arts, he was a lecturer who specialised in sculpture and later led that department.
Taylor taught modernism but encouraged his students to explore other movements.
A number of his students went on to become notable artists.
As a sculptor, his productive early and sparse late periods were figurative and modernist.
For a decade in between, Taylor produced abstract fusions of sculpture and architecture.
He also designed houses and theatre sets, and organised in the Christchurch arts community.
Taylor's contribution to sculpture is generally regarded to be the artists he taught rather than the works he produced.
Early life and education
Taylor was born on 7 May 1925 in Christchurch.He completed his schooling at St Kevin's College, Oamaru
and passed the examination to enter university at years old.
In 1939, Taylor studied architectural drawing then worked as a draughtsman in the early years of World War II.
From 1943 to 1945, he served in the Royal New Zealand Navy as a surveyor in the East Indies.
After the war, Taylor continued his studies at Canterbury University College.
He completed a degree in architectural construction in 1947.
Then in 1952, Taylor completed a diploma at the School of Fine Arts.
He studied figurative sculpture under Eric Doudney.
Working life
Educator
Taylor spent his working life as an educator in Christchurch.He started as the art master of St Andrew's College in the late 1950s.
He also continued at the university as a part-time lecturer in architectural history.
During that period, CUC became UC,
and the School of Fine Arts moved from the city centre to the suburb of Ilam.
Taylor returned to the school full-time in 1960 as a lecturer specialising in sculpture.
In 1969, without the knowledge of the university or the local authority,
he set up a foundry for casting bronze later described as "...highly illegal...".
Taylor led the sculpture department from 1969 until his retirement in 1991.
As late as the mid-1980s, Taylor taught and largely practiced modernism.
But he encouraged his students to explore other movements and unconventional media.
A number of Taylor's students became notable artists.
They include
Chris Booth, Rodney Broad, Stephen Clarke, Paul Cullen,
Bing Dawe, Neil Dawson, Stephen Furlonger,
Rosemary Johnson, John Panting, Matt Pine,
Phil Price, Pauline Rhodes, Carl Sydow,
Bronwyn Taylor, Merylyn Tweedie
and Boyd Webb.
Interviewed in Christchurch newspaper The Press,
Dawson remembered Taylor as a highly intelligent but tough sculpture and art history lecturer.
He continued " set challenges which would last for the rest of your life, and you can't ask for more than that from your teacher."
Taylor was widely regarded as an influential educator.
Sculptor
Periods and associations
Taylor's early work was figurative and mainly in concrete.By the mid-1960s, he had the idea of fusing sculpture with architecture.
In 1966, Taylor received the first Canterbury Society of Arts Guthry travel grant,
and he visited Australia.
Inspired by the massive steel work of Clement Meadmore, Taylor followed his idea.
For the next decade, he largely produced formal abstractions in steel.
In 1969, Taylor received a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council travel grant.
He visited Europe to study sculpture in bronze with and
steel with Rudolf Hoflehner.
From the 1980s, Taylor returned to figurative work, producing the occasional bronze bust.
Taylor was a member of The Group and 20/20 Vision in the 1960s,
and he co-founded the Sculptors' Group in the early 1970s.
He was also a member of the CSA from the mid-1960s.
Taylor exhibited work with all four.
Critical evaluation of work
The few reviews of Taylor's work that have been found are positive.Moraine was a freestanding sculpture and Taylor's first formal abstraction.
It was composed of forms made from welded sheet steel.
The work is in the collection of Christchurch Art Gallery.
They noted how the smooth finish hid the technique used to make it.
In 1990, Taylor said it was his favourite of his own works.
An architectural sculpture for the IBM Centre, Wellington was also composed of steel forms. At over 4 metres high by 5 metres long, it was Taylor's largest known work. Mounted in the portico at the front of the office block, vertical forms on the floor and ceiling curved to horizontal and merged then went through a gap in the glass curtain wall to end in the lobby. Architect Martin Hill sketched and reviewed the work for his Wellington Townscape column in The Dominion newspaper. He wrote it was "...a sensitively shaped vigorous form." that rewarded repeat viewing.
Transit was another architectural sculpture and Taylor's last known formal abstraction. It was in the University of Auckland Medical School. Mounted in a stairwell landing with a window, it was made of steel sheets on beams running between the walls and ceiling. In his book New Zealand Sculpture: A History, art historian Michael Dunn wrote Transit was highly abstract and industrial looking. He noted how "...the beams appear to move in space, creating a contrast with the architecture and a frame for the view through the window...".
W. A. Sutton C.B.E. was a bronze bust of Taylor's School of Fine Arts colleague and close friend, the painter better known as Bill Sutton.
Also in the CAG collection, they described it as
"...modelled in a loose, spontaneous style that gives the work a sense of liveliness and immediacy."
It was Taylor's last known work.
However, both Dunn and art critic John Coley wrote that Taylor's lasting contribution to sculpture was as an educator rather than a practitioner.
Designer
Although Taylor only had initial training in architecture, he designed a number of houses in Christchurch.In 1950, his first known design was for an art deco house in Cashmere.
Taylor designed a modernist house and studio for Bill Sutton.
Built in 1963, Sutton lived there until his death in 2000.
The house on Templar Street, Richmond
was one of the few in that area to survive
the 2010 Canterbury and 2011 Christchurch earthquakes.
Owned by Christchurch City Council since 2019,
it is used as an artist's residence.
In 2022, Heritage New Zealand listed Sutton House and Garden as a
category one historic place of special or outstanding significance.
In the mid-1960s, Taylor lived in Governors Bay.
He designed a house in the town for author Margaret Mahy,
who lived there from 1968 until her death in 2012.
Sources differ on whether Taylor designed a house in the early 1970s for another School of Fine Arts colleague,
the painter and potter Doris Lusk.
Between the mid-1950s and mid-1970s,
Taylor occasionally designed theatre sets.
The majority were for the works of Shakespeare performed by the UC Drama Society,
which were produced by a friend of Taylor's, the author Ngaio Marsh.
Organiser
Taylor helped to found a number of art ventures, all based in Christchurch.In 1964, John Coley and Taylor inspired other artists to form 20/20 Vision,
an informal group influenced by international contemporary art.
The group held annual exhibitions 19651968.
The Sculptors' Group, founded by Taylor and his student Carl Sydow in 1970, organised lectures and held three exhibitions.
It disbanded in 1972 when members moved from South to North Island or overseas for training or work opportunities.
In the early 1970s, Taylor also served on the council of the Canterbury Arts Society.
In 1980, printmaker Jule Einhorn
set up the Gingko Print Workshop and Gallery for Works on Paper
with the help of Taylor and a School of Fine Arts colleague, the printmaker Barry Cleavin.
Gingko was in the Christchurch Arts Centre, and Taylor was a member of its board.
The workshop closed in 1992.
Personal life
Taylor and his former wife Paddy had three children.His later partners were Joan Livingstone then, by the time of his death, Jule Einhorn.
Taylor died in 1994 aged 69.