Charles Brasch

Brasch was born in Dunedin in 1910. He was the first and only son of Helene Fels, a member of the prominent Hallenstein family of clothing merchants through her mother, and her husband Hyam Brasch, a lawyer who later changed his name to Henry Brash. His younger sister Lesley was born in 1911. In 1914, when Brasch was aged four, his mother died suddenly during her third pregnancy; he was later to describe this event as the end of his childhood. He grew up in Dunedin and spent much time at Manono, the house of his mother's father, Willi Fels, who instilled in him a lifelong love of European culture and artworks, and later supported his career in the arts. where he gained an "ignominious third" in Modern History (to his father's disappointment). His contemporaries at Oxford included W. H. Auden and Cecil Day-Lewis, and he had some poetry published in student magazines. He was unofficially tutored by his mother's cousin Esmond de Beer, who had lived in London since childhood, and who along with his sisters introduced Brasch to a love of fine art that would last the rest of his life. ==England, Egypt, and travel==

After Oxford, Brasch returned to Dunedin in 1931, and worked at his mother's family business Hallensteins for most of that year. After finding that working in the family firm did not suit him, and after what was described by James Bertram as a "bitter showdown" with his father, he returned to England in 1932. Brasch's friendship with Colin Roberts led him to an interest in archaeology, and in 1932 he went to Egypt for an expedition led by John Pendlebury at Amarna, in the Nile Valley. He would return for two further seasons, and between trips lived in London and studied Arabic and Egyptian history at the School of Oriental Studies. Although he did not pursue an archaeological career, Egypt was to have a lasting influence on his writing. The title poem was the strongest in the collection, and considered the identity of the European coloniser in New Zealand, where "the newcomer heart ... moves gauchely still, half alien". ==World War II==

When World War II broke out, Brasch was travelling to New Zealand with his father after his younger sister's funeral. He decided to return to England, on the basis that having "enjoyed and loved the best of England", he "must not now refuse the worst". The title poem of Disputed Ground was dedicated to his friend Roberts. Other periodicals in existence at that time were smaller and irregularly published, and Phoenix had only lasted four issues. ==Landfall==

When Brasch resigned from the Foreign Office after the war, he returned to New Zealand, settling in Dunedin permanently. He had held the ambition of publishing "a substantial literary journal" in New Zealand for at least 15 years, since Phoenix, and in 1947 he founded Landfall, remaining the editor for the next 20 years. The journal's character and importance reflected Brasch's efforts; given his independent family wealth, he was able to devote himself to editing the journal on a full-time basis, and applied high and exacting standards to the publication and the work published in it. He did, however, encourage and promote the work of new writers in whom he saw promise. In 1962, Brasch published Landfall Country: Work from Landfall, 1947–61, an anthology of works published in Landfall. Writers and poets featured included Maurice Gee, Frank Sargeson, C.K. Stead, Ruth Dallas, Allen Curnow, James K. Baxter and Fleur Adcock, and there were reproductions of paintings, sculptures and photographs by various New Zealand artists including Colin McCahon, Evelyn Page and others. It also included twenty-nine pages of selections from the editorial section written by Brasch himself. ==Later life==

In later life Brasch was a substantial patron of arts and literature in New Zealand, usually quietly and anonymously. He was also a patron and contributor to the Otago Museum; in this regard he followed in the footsteps of his maternal grandfather, Willi Fels. Egyptian artifacts he collected can be seen at the Museum. He also anonymously supported many New Zealand writers, including Frame, Sargeson and Baxter, and championed and supported artists including McCahon, Rita Angus, Toss Woollaston and many others. Brasch's works were almost exclusively published in New Zealand and continued to focus on New Zealand identity. Other occupations included the translation of works by Amrita Pritam, a brief foray into publishing with his friend Janet Paul, serving on organisations such as the Dunedin Public Library Association, the Otago Museum management committee, the Hocken Library Committee, and giving guest lectures at universities throughout New Zealand. ==Death and legacy==

Brasch became ill with cancer in mid-1972, and before his death was looked after at home by Margaret Scott and another friend Ruth Dallas. He died in May 1973. His archives are housed at the Hocken Collections, where over 450 artworks gifted by him can also be seen. In 2013, this collection was included as an entry on the UNESCO Memory of the World Aotearoa New Zealand Ngā Mahara o te Ao register. Brasch bequeathed his house at Broad Bay to Anna Caselberg and her husband John Caselberg, both New Zealand artists and members of The Group, and after their deaths in 2004 the house became an artist's retreat. Unlike his earlier work, his final poems dealt more with personal concerns and feelings than with broader issues of national identity. When gifting his journals and personal papers to the Hocken Library, Brasch did so on the condition that they be embargoed for thirty years after his death, to avoid embarrassing his friends. It was illustrated by photographs and by colour reproductions of works from his extensive art collection. In 2007, Margaret Scott edited and wrote the introduction to Charles Brasch in Egypt, Brasch's account of his time in Egypt. She also began work on transcribing the journals before her own death in 2014, In 2015, the Otago University Press published a collection of Brasch's Selected Poems, chosen and edited by his friend and literary executor Alan Roddick. Lawrence Jones in the Otago Daily Times wrote that the collection "offers the reader in an expertly and sympathetically edited, beautifully designed and printed book of 150 pages the opportunity to experience Brasch's poetic journey": "Such poems, although written in currently unfashionable modes, when they are read in their own terms remain alive and relevant as the testament to the poetic development of a reserved man of great integrity and insight, one of the makers of a New Zealand high culture". ==Personal life==

Brasch's sexual orientation was an open secret within the New Zealand literary community. Authors Peter Wells and Rex Pilgrim attempted to include a poem by Brasch in the 1997 anthology Best Mates: Gay Writing in Aotearoa New Zealand but were not able to secure permission, instead including a blank page labelled with Brasch's name. Brasch has been described as bisexual by biographer Peter Simpson. In the 1940s while returning home from England to New Zealand, Brasch unsuccessfully proposed to Rose Archdall, a widow whom he met on the SS Themistocles. ==Selected works==

Poetry • The Land and the People, and Other Poems (1939), Caxton Press • Disputed Ground (1948), Caxton Press • The Estate (1957), Caxton Press • Ambulando (1964), Caxton Press • Home Ground (1974), Caxton Press • Collected Poems (1984), Oxford University Press • Selected Poems (2015), Otago University Press Other • The Quest: Words for a Mime Play (1946), London: The Compass Players • Present Company: Reflections on the Arts (1966), Auckland: Blackwood and Janet Paul for the Auckland Gallery Associates • Such Separate Creatures: Stories (1973), Christchurch: Caxton Press • Hallensteins: the First Century, 1873–1973 (1973), Dunedin : Hallenstein Bros., 1973. (with C.R. Nicholson) • • The Universal Dance: a Selection from the Critical Prose Writings of Charles Brasch (1981), Dunedin: University of Otago Press • • • ==References==