Peter Webb

Peter Selwyn Webb (1933–2019) was an early supporter and promoter of art, and particularly contemporary New Zealand art, for over sixty years. His work spanned public art museums, publishing and the founding of the Peter Webb Galleries and Webb's auction house. Early years Born in Devonport, Auckland, Peter Webb joined the staff of the Auckland City Art Gallery as a 22-year-old student assistant in 1954 under the directorship of Eric Westbrook. At the Gallery, Webb met the artist Colin McCahon who was a curator and then, soon after Webb's arrival, Keeper of the collections. Webb said of McCahon, “Once I fell under McCahon’s spell I couldn’t let him out of my sight. He was my guru.” There is an early portrait by McCahon of Webb painted in July 1955. In 1957, Webb left the Auckland City Art Gallery to open the first standalone contemporary dealer gallery in the city. Peter Webb Gallery occupied a small room on the top floor of Argus House, 24 High Street. The first exhibition was a group show including McCahon, Rita Angus, Tosswill Woollaston, Michael Nicholson and Cora Wilding held in July (New Zealand Herald 20 July 1957) and later that year in December Colin McCahon's first solo exhibition in Auckland was opened. Titled Recent Oils it was a small group of McCahon's Titirangi paintings. At this time Webb was also active in publishing offering for sale a set of four prints by Colin McCahon, the lithographic series Puketutu, and two by Gabrielle Hope. Tosswill Woollaston was offered the same opportunity by Webb and, while initially agreeing, he was unable to travel to Auckland to work on the plates. Webb closed the Argus House-based gallery in 1958. For a time he worked for a general auctioneer, and then in 1964 he started his own auction house. Using the middle name of his friend Hamish Keith, Cordy's was the first auction house in New Zealand to specialise in art as a separate category.