The Rick Rudd Foundation was established in 2013 as a charitable trust. In 2014 Rick purchased the building at 8 Bates Street and gifted this and his collection of studio ceramics to the Foundation.
The aim of the Foundation is to provide a public amenity by the ownership, development, curation and public exhibition of the Rick Rudd Collection. The access to his Library and Archive allows for education of potters and the public alike.
Rick began his life-long passion for clay in September 1968 at Great Yarmouth College of Art, U.K. To celebrate this obsession of more than 50 years of working with clay, the Emerging Practitioner in Clay Award is offered through the Foundation to foster and encourage new talent. The first Award and exhibition was staged in 2018 and the second in 2021. It is planned to be a triennial event.
Donations can be made directly to: Rick Rudd Foundation, Account number: 03 0791 0001615 00
Rick sold his home of fifteen years and bought the building to house the Museum in 2014. He has given the building and his collection of studio ceramics to the Foundation, in the hope that it will be secured for the nation in perpetuity.
The building grabbed Rick’s attention because of its brutalist architecture. It has a variety of room sizes on two floors which allows for displaying the groups of works to be shown. Each room has its own aspect filled with light as it was designed for engineers and valuers which required natural light for architectural drawing. It was actually built in two stages, the ground floor in 1964 (Architect: Don McCallum) and the first floor added in 1978/79 (Architect: Bruce Dixon). During the building of the first floor, staff continued to work in the ground floor offices but had to vacate to the carpark when large concrete panels were being installed on the first floor. The original ground floor flat roof was retained and is now encased between the old ground floor ceilings and the underside of the precast concrete first floor. Over the intervening years the internal spaces have been altered several times, but its unique style remains.
The two-storey building received an Aotearoa New Zealand Institute of Architects design award. Previously named Moutoa Chambers, it has been renamed Munford House in recognition of the family name of Rick Rudd’s mother.
