Guest curated by Dr Penelope Jackson MNZM, this show celebrates and acknowledge the 20th anniversary of the Edward Bullmore gift to Toi Tauranga Art Gallery. Twenty works explore Bullmore’s artistic journey from his boyhood in Murihiku Southland, his teaching days in Tauranga, artistic heyday in London and his final years in Rotorua. Working across a variety of media, Bullmore secured his reputation in London during the 1960s, but Aotearoa New Zealand was always at the very core of his life and work, as reflected in the gallery’s outstanding collection.

Bullmore (1933-78) graduated in painting from the Canterbury College School of Art, Ōtautahi Christchurch, before taking up a teaching position in 1957, at Tauranga College. He spent the 1960s based in London, following an intense six months in Florence, painting and studying Renaissance art. In 1970, Bullmore and his family returned to Rotorua. Bullmore exhibited widely during his career including in a major Surrealist exhibition, The Enchanted Domain: Surrealist Art at Exeter, England in 1967 and his work, acquired by filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, feature in the 1971 cult movie, A Clockwork Orange. Bullmore’s legacy lives on in the 287 works gifted by his widow, Jacqueline in 2006, to Toi Tauranga Art Gallery.