Hamilton’s 1964 Sapper Moore-Jones Exhibition

Historic tit-bits of Horace’s early life feature in the 1964 Waikato Society of Arts catalogue for the exhibition commemorating the artist, the 50th anniversary of Gallipoli, and the Centennial of Hamilton. Exhibition curator James Mack references Moore-Jones’ personal scrapbook as well as newspaper articles as sources for the “biographical notes”. (WSA Catalogue 1964)

Mack says the Hamilton show in the city’s London Street Art Gallery was “the only retrospective exhibition ever held” of Moore-Jones work, and the first to be held since the benefit exhibition four decades earlier to raise money for his widow shortly after his death in April 1922.

Some 200 of catalogues remaining after the exhibition were destroyed at the time with motives related to Mack’s homosexuality (Campbell Smith 2012). Mack was himself controversial. After a period with Auckland Art Gallery, in 1981 he became director of Lower Hutt’s Dowse Art Museum.

‘The public will forgive you as long as you are not boring. You have to do things which are challenging, which are commanding, otherwise you fail once again in the education process.’
-James Mack

Download the Exhibition Catalog