About MANZ

The New Zealand Medallion Group was formed in 1989 through the energies of Betty Beadle and Marian Fountain. It was their belief that medal art should be made, celebrated and championed in this country after the wonderful work of Betty’s late husband Professor Paul Beadle, a lecturer at Elam school of Fine Arts in Auckland who had gained an international reputation in this field.

Marian and Betty invited artists Marté Szirmay, Christine Massey, Wallace Sutherland, Terry Stringer to join them in making and promoting the art form. This original group was called the ‘New Zealand Contemporary Medallion Group’ (NZCMG) later dropping ‘contemporary’. In 2004, the group changed their name to Medal Art New Zealand (MANZ) to better reflect the diverse range of art medal practice within the group.

In May 1989 at Star Art Gallery in Karangahape Road, Auckland, the group had its first exhibition. It featured the work of thirty artists as well as a survey of thirty years of the work of Paul Beadle. The invited artists were from all disciplines, so this was a truly exploratory exhibition revelling in the different approaches and influences that such a variety of artists bring. Over some twenty five years the group has continued to grow, evolve and exhibit.

Paul Beadle

Paul Beadle was born in Hungerford, Berkshire, England. He studied at Cambridge Art School; the London Country Council Central School of Arts and Crafts, as well as privately under sculptor carver Alfred Southwick, and later in Copenhagen in the studio of Kurt Harald Eisenstein. During WWII, Paul enlisted in the Royal Navy and served until 1943. In 1944 he travelled to Australia as a submariner-artist and stayed there once the war ended. Here he took up teaching. For six years from 1951 he was the head of the Art School at Newcastle Technical College and from 1958 to 1960 he was Principal of the South Australian School of Art. In 1961 Paul moved to Auckland to become Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland. Between 1961 and 1975 he was also the Dean of the Elam School of Art at the University of Auckland. Paul was the Foundation President of the New Zealand Society of Sculptors and Associates in Auckland in 1962. He was also a Fellow of the Royal South Australian Society of Arts and the President of the New Zealand Society of Industrial Designers. According to art historian Dr Mark Stocker, Beadle was “New Zealand’s foremost internationally recognised medal maker”. In 2003, after the death of Betty Beadle, Jill Hetherington (Betty’s daughter, and copyright holder of the Betty and Paul J Beadle estates) offered Paul Beadle’s papers to the University of Auckland Fine Arts Library.

Betty Beadle

Australian born and trained, Betty Beadle (née Cutcher) began her arts career in sculpture and ceramics in the 1950s. “Beginning in 1961, the Low Show Group was an active collective of women artists, exhibiting in Newcastle. The group members were Norma Allen, Mary Beeston, Betty Cutcher (Beadle), Elizabeth Martin, Lillian Sutherland and Rae Richards. Through a discussion of shared and individual careers as practitioners, their community service and their role as teachers, their influence is shown in the artistic practices of their students and colleagues and in the art world of their time. Their contribution was important in paving the way for the future of the fine arts in Newcastle.” * Betty migrated to New Zealand in 1965 and was exhibiting sculpture at the Auckland City Gallery Festival Exhibition in 1968 with fellow artist Paul Beadle (later head of the fine arts faculty at the University of Auckland) whom she would marry. In 1988, with Marian Fountain, Betty co-founded the New Zealand Contemporary Medallion Group, currently known as Medal Artists of New Zealand (MANZ).

* Changing the art culture of Newcastle: the contribution of the Low Show Group of artists Margaret McBride, Doctor of Philosophy Thesis, The University of Newcastle. Faculty of Education & Arts, 2010.