By Sorrel Hoskin

It's surprising how little is known about the woman who helped kick start New Plymouth's first public art gallery. The Govett-Brewster has grown to be the nation's leading contemporary art gallery, and renowned throughout the world for its cutting edge exhibitions.

But of Monica Brewster – the woman who bequest £50,000 ($100,000) by trust deed to the New Plymouth City Council for the establishment and development of a public art gallery in the city - there's very little.

Just who was this woman?

As the Govett-Brewster publication Monica R. Brewster points out, Monica was a very private person toward the end of her life. She shied away from any publicity surrounding her bequest. Her contemporaries are gone, there are no newspaper interviews with the woman, so information has to be pieced together from many sources.

Family heritage

Monica's family had its roots firmly imbedded in New Plymouth.

Her mother's father was Sir Harry Atkinson who was premier of New Zealand for five terms in the 1870s and 1880s, while her paternal grandfather was Archdeacon Henry Govett, the first Archdeacon in Taranaki and the second vicar of St Mary's Anglican Church in New Plymouth. He lived in the Te Henui vicarage.

Monica's father Clement Govett was a barrister who founded the legal firm Govett Quilliam in 1897.

It was to this heritage that Monica Romaine Govett was born on 10 February 1886. She was the youngest of four girls. But the Govett family was met with tragedy early on – two of Monica's elder sisters died young; Marian at the age of ten and Dorothy at 16. Her other sister Marjorie married and emigrated to England.

Monica was sent to Wanganui Girls' High School, boarding with her cousin William Atkinson and his family. When she returned to New Plymouth she was enrolled at Chetwoode, Miss Stanford's school for girls,

Monica then travelled to England with her mother and two sisters where they lived in Halsmere, Surrey. Monica returned to New Zealand in 1912, but made several more trips to England over the years.

A dashing ship's doctor

It was during one of these journeys that she met Dr Rex Carrington Brewster, senior medical officer on board the Kagoma. Rex was from New Plymouth and had served in the Middle East during WWI where he was awarded the Military Cross.

The couple was married in Wanganui on 21 September 1920.

Monica Govett and Rex Brewster were married in Wanganui

"The bride, who was given away by her cousin, Mr William Atkinson, wore a dainty frock of white georgette with pale blue girdle and carried a bouquet of primroses and hyacinths," wrote the Wanganui Chronicle.

In 1927 the Brewster's travelled to Vienna for 18 months while Rex trained as an ear, eye, nose and throat specialist. But Rex got very ill with tuberculosis and they returned to New Zealand, where they lived in the South Island for a couple of years as the climate was supposed to be good for Rex's recovery.

At last returning home to New Plymouth, Rex established his medical practice, working from rooms in their house at 234 Devon Street.

A society lady

Monica enjoyed a privileged and leisured lifestyle, she did not have to work and had no children. The couple hired home help to do the housework and cook the meals. She had her own car and used to travel around the town and district visiting friends and attending meetings.

She had eclectic tastes and liked to surround herself with beautiful things, collecting paintings, ornaments and small objects that appealed to her.

Having plenty of spare time she filled it with her loves: she was a keen gardener and took an interest in horticulture, tennis, golf and bowls, sketching and amateur theatre. Monica was a member of the New Plymouth Forest and Bird Society, and a founding member of the Pukeiti Rhododendron Trust. The garden's Brewster walk is named after her. She was also a founding member of the Taranaki Women's Club, becoming its president in 1931, and was patron of the club until her death.

The Brewster's grand home on Devon Street

Monica Brewster was a liberal thinker. One of her closest friends was Edith Bruce (Brucey) a teacher at New Plymouth Girl's High School, who was also a liberal thinker, admired for her "perennial youthfulness and response to new ideas." She and Monica shared a love of art and literature.

Monica liked to keep abreast of world news, and read a lot – global newspapers and art magazines in particular. From her home in New Plymouth she had her finger firmly on the pulse of what was going on in the outside world. She had a strong interest in modern art collecting works from the 1930s and 40s, preferring these to the "bland" landscapes of the 19th Century. Whenever she visited Europe she would visit art galleries, keeping herself up-to-date with the fashions.

Pacifist

During WW II Monica declared herself a pacifist, a brave stand to take in a small conservative town like New Plymouth, and especially as a doctor's wife. In 1939 she and Elsie Andrews wrote a letter to the Taranaki Herald in support of Pacifism.

At the beginning of the war Monica worked on a horticultural display in a New Plymouth hall.  But when the Horticultural Society decided to make the exhibition into a patriotic affair, Monica, having declared herself a conscientious objector and a pacifist, had to back out.

A quieter life

Rex died in 1952 and from then Monica lead a quieter life. For the last ten years of her life she stayed in bed. It's not clear whether she was actually sick, suffering merely from old age or she just simply preferred to retire in privacy. She conducted her affairs from her bed – even getting the paper boy to deliver the Daily News to her bedside every morning.

In the late 1960s she moved into Iona Private Hospital where she spent most of her time reading, and listening to the radio, tuned to the National programme, and continued to chain smoke. She would do crossword puzzles and had an anagram dictionary under her pillow.

A bequest

Why bequest £50,000 to a city? Monica Brewster had no immediate family to give her money to. She and her husband Rex had no children, and neither did either of the couple's siblings. Both Monica and Rex came from well-to-do New Plymouth families and believed the money should be returned to the community. According to the Govett-Brewster publication Monica felt that establishing an art gallery in New Plymouth would create a significant cultural asset for the town.

Whatever the reason, in 1963 Monica gifted £50,000 in stocks and shares by Trust Deed to the New Plymouth City Council for the establishment and development of a public art gallery in New Plymouth. Her main stipulation was that the gallery be named in commemoration of both her own family and her husband's family, hence the name Govett-Brewster. The Trust Deed which establishes the gallery is a shrewdly written document, which put in place a number of mechanisms and safeguards.

"The ground breaking thing about this bequest was that it was accompanied with the trust deed," says Govett-Brewster Art Gallery director Greg Burke. "Monica Brewster went out and consulted widely with leading art experts of the time. On the basis of these discussions she drew up a trust deed which gave very specific guidelines to the art gallery and what sort of gallery it was."

The deed stipulated the gallery should be run by a director who was a leading art professional with a national reputation - a stipulation that is still adhered to today.

"It ensured that the council couldn't appoint the green grocer down the road," says Greg. "She wanted the gallery to be a significant addition to the town - one of national standing. She wanted it to be professional but also leading edge if you like.

The deed also ensured that the funds couldn't be whittled away, and formed a close relationship with the council and the gallery.

"Even today in New Zealand there is no art gallery with such an outward looking policy," says Greg. "The deed determined the quality of the directors and this has been the key to the gallery's success."

The gallery

In 1966 a gallery committee bought the old Regent Cinema on Queen Street in New Plymouth. The cinema was gutted and five floors added with plenty of exhibition and storage space.

John Maynard, the new director established a policy that the Gallery collect contemporary art from the Pacific Region, with emphasis on New Zealand art.  . The first exhibition, opening on 22 February 1970, was a culture shock for the conservative people of New Plymouth.

Leon Narby's environmental installation of neon tubes, sheet aluminium, black PVC sheeting and chromium strip which swung, boomed and flashed was a real eye opener. As local reviewer Noeline Blackman put it "... for the general public it was literally a cultural shock. A quiet provincial centre with down-to-earth Kiwi values was dragged screaming into the contemporary world."

Monica Brewster did not attend the opening of the art gallery. She was unwell and anyway, wasn't keen on crowds.

The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery

But director John Maynard and a few others showed her around just before the building was completed and before the opening exhibition was installed. They carried her up and down the stairs in a chair. She loved the gallery but the excitement and movement upset her and she was ill. After that first visit she didn't see the gallery again.

Described as a futurist thinker she was very excited by the direction into contemporary art which John Maynard was taking the gallery.

Despite being stuck in bed at Iona hospital Monica was up-to-date with what was going on at the gallery – she read newspapers and people would visit.

She died of pneumonia at Iona private Hospital on 13 December 1973 and is buried in the Govett family plot at Te Henui cemetery but has no headstone – the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery is her legacy and her memorial.

In her will she bequest a further $100,000 to the gallery to be used for the purchase of artworks for the collection.

An ongoing legacy

Today the trust deed is more symbolic, says Greg Burke, but the stipulation of leading edge professional directors is still adhered to.

Monica's money has been used to buy New Zealand art – Colin McCahon, Ralph Hotere and others – forming the basis of a collection that is worth millions of dollars.

The gallery has recently established a foundation, which specifically aims to extend the example set by Monica Brewster through her visionary support of the gallery.