Captivated by Kiwiana
By Claire McCall

Author/artist Richard Wolfe's Freeman's Bay home is a shrine to Kiwiana packaging and furniture from days gone by. Photo / Babiche Martens

Amid the pleasantries of meeting and greeting, it's not uncommon for the collection of old tins, jars and packets, displayed in cabinets in the entrance hall of Richard Wolfe's Freeman's Bay villa, to go unnoticed.

Attention is primarily on the host; next the eye is drawn to a bookshelf groaning with titles, and finally, a large, striking floral canvas painted by his wife, artist Pamela Wolfe. And that's the way the author of Crikey! Talk about Kiwiana likes it.
"I enjoy the fact that these items were not perceived as having any value. They were ordinary, everyday ephemera and often overlooked."
But not by Richard, who gathered them with passion - a collection initially spawned by a love of graphics.

As a young boy growing up in New Plymouth, Richard recalls that his mother, like other mums of her generation, baked regularly. Since there was no such thing as self-raising flour, Edmonds Baking Powder was an essential pantry staple. Richard was drawn to the positive, sunny nature of the design on the tin.
At art school in the 60s, his love of such imagery was finally vindicated when the Pop Art phenomenon made it unexpectedly respectable.

Andy Warhol was designing labels for Campbell's soup tins while fellow artist David Hockney made his mark on Typhoo Tea.
"Suddenly, the world of high art and commercial art collided. One happily exploited the other," says Richard.
Today, in his kitchen there is a wooden cabinet painted with the cheery yellow and orange rays of Edmonds fame, and his appreciation of these once-commonplace objects has grown beyond the aesthetic. "I see them in the context of social history," he says.
Still, giving consumables such as Jaffas, Chesdale cheese and Weet-Bix iconic status is a recent development and it wasn't before the 80s that the term "Kiwiana" was used.
"With economic deregulation, life began to change. Whereas we had been insulated for so long, in the late 80s we signed up to the real world. It was only then that we started to catalogue aspects of New Zealand life we had so long taken for granted."

And who better to do that than Richard? He had not only worked at the Auckland and Canterbury museums and thus developed an understanding of the need to preserve our history (albeit recent), but had amassed a collection of more than 300 products that he stored in boxes in the basement of his villa.
In 1989, with friend and co-author Stephen Barnett, he published New Zealand! New Zealand! In praise of Kiwiana. A new word and a new movement was born.

This story by Claire McCall first appeared in the VIVA section of the NZ Herald 11 November, 2009 and is reporoduced here with their permission.