Tribute to NZ designer Donald Ramage

With a career in design which spanned over 50 years, Napier born Don Ramage has made a significant contribution to New Zealand’s cultural history. His death on May 29th 2009 marks the passing of one of the pioneers of design education in this country.

From his award winning work as a designer and printmaker in the 1960s, through to his involvement in the foundation of New Zealand’s earliest tertiary design school which he later headed, Ramage has left a considerable legacy to subsequent generations.

Like many of his generation Ramage was drawn into the Second World War as a young man, returning to New Zealand in 1946. Back in New Zealand Ramage picked up the threads of his life, marrying Joan Avery and returning to Wellington and his interrupted study of New Zealand art history at Victoria University.

A keen painter before the war, when Ramage resumed his university studies his personal interest in making art was reignited. He attended art classes at Wellington Technical College, where in the evening printmaking studio he worked alongside some of the leading figures of New Zealand modernist illustration including E. Mervyn Taylor, George Woods and Ken Hassel. Despite his early realisation that the New Zealand art world could be less than welcoming towards those pursuing alternative directions, Don Ramage’s career has been defined by his resolutely modern approach.

Like many artists, Ramage supported his artwork through teaching. From his position as Art Master at Wellington College in the late 1940s, to his appointment as a founding staff member of New Zealand’s first, and at the time the most prestigious, design school his career has been committed to advancing the creative industries in New Zealand. In his position at Wellington Polytechnic School of Design (now Massey University) Ramage fed his experience as a printmaker and graphic designer into the development of robust, sustainable and industry-led programmes. During his time as Head of School in the late 1970s, Ramage was directly responsible for setting up what are now considered the country’s foremost textile design courses.

While Ramage’s achievements went largely unrecognised following his retirement in the 1980s, in 2007 Hawke’s Bay Museum and Art Gallery brought his work back into the public eye in the exhibition Don Ramage – Steel Jungle. This exhibition, which subsequently showed at Waikato Museum of Art and History, reacquainted the contemporary audience with Ramage’s work as an artist, designer and educator. It was a great privilege to acknowledge Ramage’s achievements in his lifetime, casting him in a new light to family and friends and recognising a career dedicated to the development of New Zealand design.

Donald J. Ramage, 1923 – 2009 - Artist, Designer & Educator

Lucy Hammonds
Curator, Don Ramage – Steel Jungle 2007
Curator of Design Collections
Hawke’s Bay Museum and Art Gallery, Napier