The Marti Friedlander Archive is one of the most important archival repositories of a New Zealand photographer’s work. On loan from the Gerrard and Marti Friedlander Charitable Trust and housed at the E H McCormick Research Library, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, this extensive collection comprises negatives, slides, and over 8,000 photographs and proof sheets, plus correspondence, exhibition ephemera, press clippings, catalogues, and publications.
Marti Friedlander (1928-2016) was a pre-eminent New Zealand photographer, who arrived in New Zealand from the UK in 1958, having worked in the London studio of expatriate photographer Douglas Glass. Marti took photographs almost every day, either for herself or on assignment, as well as working at times as a studio photographer for Gordon Crocker.
Spanning from 1960 to Marti’s death in 2016, the archive covers almost 60 years of her career in New Zealand, showcasing diverse subject matter and including well-known portraits of prominent artists, writers, and events, as well as rural, urban, and suburban landscapes. Marti also documented places she lived in or visited, including Israel, Fiji, Tokelau, and England as well as significant projects, including images taken for various publications she contributed to, such as Moko: the art of Maori tattooing (with Michael King, 1972) and Larks in Paradise: New Zealand Portraits (with James McNeish, 1974). Explaining her approach to photography, Marti once stated:
“My photography has always been about an involvement and extension of a personal view of life, rather than a particular attention to the craft itself. My cameras accompanied me then so that I could record the everyday.”
Marti Friedlander, Self Portrait with Nikon, circa 1970, black and white print, RC2007/11/47/85, E H McCormick Research Library, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, on loan from the Gerrard and Marti Friedlander Charitable Trust, 2002
The first consignment arrived at the Galley in 2002 and included over 4,000 primarily black and white photographs and proof sheets printed by Marti. Marti was always keen for her works to be accessible, and the Gerrard and Marti Friedlander Trust have supported this, funding the digitisation of these archival prints from 2018. This was the beginning of a unique project for our team.
Usually, when both prints and negatives are available, we would digitise the negatives, using our medium format cameras to produce higher-resolution images with more tonal range. However, prior to the use of colour film, Marti printed her own works, cropping negatives, and working from proof sheets to select which negative was the “best” frame 1. With one goal of this project being to create digital surrogates true to Marti’s print decisions, digitising her choices of photographic prints and proof sheets was vital, making it possible to better understand her interactive and unique artistic perspective and approach to each of her images 1.
‘Fit to Print’, Going West Books and Writers Festival, 1999, black & white proof sheet, 203 x 254 mm. RC2007/11/16/215, E H McCormick Research Library, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, on loan from the Gerrard and Marti Friedlander Charitable Trust, 2002
We worked in close consultation with the Gallery’s photographer, Jennifer French and, in 2019 the Gerrard and Marti Friedlander Trust archivist Linda Yang with then E H McCormick Research Library archivist Caroline McBride oversaw the upload of these 4000 plus digitised images to the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki Collections Online.1
In 2024, the Trust funded digitisation of the second tranche of 4,000 plus prints of various sizes along with proof sheets and here, our internal systems ensured our output from the second batch followed seamlessly from the first, despite the six years gap between. As Northern Ops Lead Marc Thompson explained in his presentation at the NZPCC forum last year:
“One of our quality goals at NZMS is creating consistent digital output, no matter the timeframe. We work in carefully controlled workspaces, calibrating not only our physical environment but every aspect of our capture workflow, so we have confidence that files are delivered to the same quality and aesthetics year after year.”
Though we primarily work from reference numbers related to our object level target, rather than relying on any one technician’s subjective ‘eye’, we also keep a few reference sample images of previous files for details such as a client’s crop preference. Using these images and our production notes, we were able to refine technical details relating to our approach back in 2018, using this to confirm requirements with Jennifer French and the E H McCormick Research Library archivist, Freya Elmer.
The completion of this second consignment marks a significant step toward increasing accessibility to Marti’s archive of photographic prints, with these images set to also be made available on Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki’s Collections Online in the future.
The significance of the Archive has been recognised by its inclusion on the UNESCO Aotearoa/ New Zealand Memory of the World Register. The inscription mentions the ‘irreplaceable portraits of many of the major political and artistic figures in post-war New Zealand’ as well as Marti’s 1970 series documenting the moko of Māori kuia. It labels her documentation of protests and demonstrations as ‘cultural touchstone(s)’ and describes the archive as ‘an indelible record on New Zealand life in the second half of the 20th century’. 1
Marti expressed her hopes for her work:
“That is all I want my images to do – to touch people and make them think.” 3
Peace, Power, Politics Conference, Wellington, 203 x 254 mm, RC2007/11/1/208, E H McCormick Research Library, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, on loan from the Gerrard and Marti Friedlander Charitable Trust, 2002
[Philip Slight and young child], black and white photographic print, 203 x 254 mm, RC2007/11/19/42, E H McCormick Research Library, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, on loan from the Gerrard and Marti Friedlander Charitable Trust, 2002
References
All images courtesy of E H McCormick Research Library, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, on loan from the Gerrard and Marti Friedlander Charitable Trust, 2002
(1) Marti Friedlander: Her Archive Online; McBride, Caroline. Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki website, 11th April 2023; https://www.aucklandartgallery.com/article/marti-friedlander-her-archive-online, (accessed 14/03/2025).
(2). Marti Friedlander Archive. UNESCO Memory Of The Waorld website; https://unescomow.nz/inscription/marti-friedlander-archive, (accessed 12/02/2025).
(3) In Her Own Words. Marti Friedlander website; https://martifriedlander.com/about/ (accessed 13/02/2025).