Para Matchitt's vision of the haka!

When I was a child my mother took me to an exhibition of Paratene Matchitt's artwork in Hamilton and I have followed his career ever since. Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki recently acquired at auction an early painting by Para titled Au Au Aue Hāa! It is one of the first contemporary painted representations of haka.

Hamish Keith confirmed that he had worked with both Peter Tomory and Colin McCahon on the New Zealand Painting 1962 exhibition, in which this painting was included as catalogue number 52. It was likely that Hamish was responsible for alerting Peter and Colin to Para's talent.

I phoned Para and he recalled in a flash that this painting was shown publicly for the first time at this Gallery – a few months after he had completed it on Sunday 9 September 1962.

When I first saw the painting I did not know its correct title and the painting has no inscriptions on the back of the original frame. I accessed the artist's file in the E.H. McCormick Research Library and recalled that I had assembled useful information about Para's early work. I re-read Rangihiroa Panoho's MA thesis on the artist that is held in the Library.

In  Para's file there is a black and white photograph of this painting, that I sourced from the New Zealand Herald long ago when I did not know the work's whereabouts. I had written onto the photo's mount card this commentary from the Herald of 23 September 1964:
   
A painting by the Hamilton artist, Para Matchitt, showing how traditional Maori art forms can be applied by a modern artist to produce powerful symbolic effect – in this case the vigour and ferocity of the haka. The author of the accompanying article considers Para Matchitt’s work suited to present day architectural application.
In the artist's file I found the following undated colour article from the New Zealand Women's Weekly. What a stun to see  Au Au Aue Hāa! reproduced top right and another Para Matchitt painting The Carver III  created in May 1964 and which we acquired in 2007.

Para Matchitt’s Au Au Aue Hā!!! comes from a small group of gouache paintings that interpret visual aspects of haka as it performed as dance yet traditionally depicted in whakairo. Para was one of the first artists to bring indigenous carving and dance traditions into painting.

The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa holds the smaller painting Whiti te ra 1962 (675 x 430mm) which dates from 3 months earlier than Au Au Aue Hā!!! The painting's title echoes the passion filled call in the renowned haka Ko Niu Tireni (1925) written by Wiremu Rangi.

Au Au Aue Hā!!! is one of Para Matchitt’s earliest major works. The painting did not result from either a preparatory sketch or preliminary drawing, which is in line with the ways he imagined all his paintings and drawings in his mind and then drew them accordingly.

The figure in the painting is shown performing a haka with upraised hands and arms and with feet set apart. By restricting his palette to muted greys with intense tones of red and black, the painting reveals a powerful graphic presence. The figure’s naval, chest and bicep are indicated by traditional Maori designs that have been transformed in expressive gestures.

In the Women's Weekly portrait of Para seated above, he is holding his sculpture Crucifix 1964 which the Ilene and Laurence Dakin Bequest purchased for the Gallery in 2007.

[I see Auckland has the England versus All Blacks rugby match at Eden Park this weekend. I know that there will be a terrific haka performed by the men in Black just before kick-off]

Image credits:

Paratene Matchitt
born 1933 Aotearoa New Zealand
Ngāti Porou, Whakatōhea, Whānau ā Apanui
Au Au Aue Hā!!! 1962
gouache on paper
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
gift of the Ilene and Laurence Dakin Bequest, 2014

Undated clipping from the New Zealand Women's Weekly

Unknown photographer Para Matchitt circa 1965

Auckland Art Gallery celebrates 125 years

The opening of Auckland Art Gallery at 3.30pm on Friday 17 February 1888

It is nearly 125 years since Auckland Art Gallery opened.

No photographs were taken at the opening of Auckland Art Gallery, 3.30pm on Friday 17 February 1888. This was because interior photography, other than in purpose-built portrait studios, was not technically available in Auckland at that time. Yet, from the news coverage, we learn that many people converged at the Gallery’s entrance in Coburg Street (now Kitchener Street) to attend this occasion. The speeches were given inside the exhibition room proudly described as ‘the largest Art Gallery in the Australian Colony…105 feet in length, 32 feet in breadth… with a wall space of 5,890 square feet’. Interestingly, news coverage of the event noted that many women were present. I suppose many of the men who might have been there were at their jobs.

The speakers at the opening were Mayor Albert Devore, Governor Sir William Francis Drummond Jervois, KCMG, CB and Auckland Society of Art President Mr E A McKechnie. The governor said, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, this Art Gallery is, thanks to Sir George Grey, the first permanent one in New Zealand’. He added, presciently, ‘it is most gratifying to know that there are already many able artists in this country whose work will become the foundation of a New Zealand school of painting’.

The Gallery was still being completed at the time of the Library’s opening on Tuesday 22 March 1887. Sir George Grey, twice governor of New Zealand, had been central to the Grand Opening Ceremony of Auckland’s Public Library. In his address, Grey provided an account of the need for arts and knowledge to inform the public. In early February 1888, Sir George informed the Mayor of Auckland that he was unwell and would be unable to attend the Gallery opening, yet the 28 paintings, which he had gifted, would be on show. The Herald commentator described many of the artworks in detail.

One of the features which emerge from the opening speaker’s comments that day is the notion that Auckland Art Gallery should collect both international and New Zealand art. It was suggested that living artists’ works be included. As well as this, the speakers expressed the wish that the City of Auckland, its businesses and its citizens work together to support both the growth and development of the Gallery.

Mayor Devore commented that although artworks had already been gifted and loaned, he hoped more gifting of art would occur. The governor added he believed Sir George Grey’s philanthropy and his endowment of books and art to the Library and Gallery was expressly ‘for the free use of the people’.

It has been fascinating to review which artworks the public saw on Friday 17 February 1888. They have helped determine the subsequent collection’s growth and focus.

Caspar Netscher’s Girl Arranging Flowers was one of Sir George Grey’s personal favorites; it had belonged to his mother. The 1862 William Ewart painting of his equerry Hami Hone Ropiha (John Hobbs) was the first New Zealand portrait to enter the Gallery’s collection. Governor Grey had commissioned this work. One of the first examples of New Zealand contemporary art shown at the Gallery, which had already entered the collection, was Kennett Watkins’ The Home of the Cormorants, Waitakere Ranges, 1886 – a very recent view of a swamp in west Auckland.

Recalling the opening of the Gallery demonstrates that a vision for the its future existed 125 years ago. The current reality of the Gallery was imagined on that occasion, as was the future nature of the art collection. The opening speakers probably had zero consciousness that the collection would have expanded – at the moment of its 125th anniversary to 15,402 items. All of these can be accessed via the Gallery’s website. So very many of them have been acquired by Auckland’s citizens through our city Council or via gifts, bequests and long-term loans from generous individuals and organisations.


CREDITS:
Caspar Netscher
Girl Arranging Flowers 1683
oil on canvas
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
gift of Sir George Grey, 1883

William Ewart
Hami Hone Ropiha (John Hobbs) 1862
oil on canvas
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
gift of Sir George Grey, 1887

Kennett Watkins
The Home of the cormorants, Waitakere Ranges 1886
gouache
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
gift of students of the artist, 1888

Kura Te Waru Rewiri

Kura: Story of a Māori Woman Artist was launched 21 January 2012 at Mangere Arts Centre — Ngā Tohu o Uenuku. The book takes its title from the exhibition currently on display at the Centre, which was curated by Nigel Borel and opened 16 December last year. Conceived as a retrospective exhibition of a senior Māori woman artist, it offers an experience of quality ideas and achieves all it set out to celebrate. The exhibition highlights the art practice of Kura Te Waru Rewiri, a founding member of the 1970s protest group Nga Tamatoa, a fine arts educator and contemporary arts advocate, and contemporary painter.

The book launch attracted whānau, friends and artists. Tributes were made to Kura for her contributions to contemporary art and attendees were invited to take away signed copies of the publication. It is a handsome 80-page book, an example of Kura’s connoisseurship as a painter and the development of her contemporary art journey. The essays in the book form strong relationships with contemporary Māori art and the Mana Wahine art movement.

 Kura shares this legacy with painters Emily Karaka and Robyn Kahukiwa, and a range of strong women leaders who worked for Māori visibility while analysing the Treaty of Waitangi (ToW). You could say that art then was a perfect vehicle to bring Māori and the ToW to the public’s attention. Those wahine toa who were inspirational at the time were Hana Te Hemara-Jackson, Donna Awatere, Eva Rickard, Dame Te Atairangikahu and Dame Whina Cooper.

Kura publishes new writing by Nigel Borell, Megan Tamati-Quennell, Deidre Brown and myself. It brings forward the artist’s ideas and shows their relevance in today’s arts environment. The essays provide a context for the array of kaupapa Māori that Kura has explored over time, including the ToW. In this way, the exhibition and book can be thought of as history lessons you might now have learned.

We hear that Kura’s double conundrum of being a woman/Māori artist belongs to the 20th century because this is no longer politicised – even though her present-day content is just as challenging as her painting practice of the 1980s and 90s. Her 2000s’ exploration of kōwhaiwhai patterns, for example, challenge some Māori male practitioners and kōwhaiwhai is not well understood by contemporary practitioners and critics. Perhaps part of this problem is that today’s detractors still think kōwhaiwhai is what Gordon Walter and Theo Schoon painted. Yet, as is shown, by the end of the first decade of the 2000s Kura took control and brought forth new understandings, theories and a new appreciation for Māori art forms, patterns and meaning.

The book also presents information and facts not previously published about the artist. Kura changed her name by deed-poll when she was 21 years as an act of liberation. You can see this freedom in the 1971 photograph of her and Tame Iti, taken during her University of Canterbury days. She told me that she loved to go op-shop rummaging on the lookout for fur coats and Christchurch certainly had a startling array of them for a young Māori woman from the North to purchase for $1 – which was a lot of money in those days.

Kura’s personal and professional relationships are enduring and she maintains friendships with people from all cultures and walks of life. Her influence is felt in the practitioner community in her support, guidance and mentorship of artists and contemporary Māori art curators such as Nigel Borell. James Pinker, visual arts manager of Mangere Arts Centre has this to say about the launch.

‘It was a great honour to host not only the exhibition but the launch of this substantial publication and to have it in Mangere especially was of great significance to us all.’

Last words go to Nigel Borell, ‘We are all very proud and pleased with the results and look forward to finally sharing the publication with the public.’ Copies can be purchased from The Mangere Arts Centre at a very reasonable $20 each.