Peter McLeavey

It is with sadness that we learnt today of the passing of Peter McLeavey, a great friend to New Zealand’s artists and a wonderful advocate for art.

Staff of Auckland Art Gallery have long had an enduring association with Peter and his much admired Wellington gallery on the first floor of 147 Cuba Street. Our thoughts go to his family and friends and we send them our sincere condolences.

Over the next week the E.H.McCormick Research Library (open Monday to Saturday 1 to 5pm) will have available Luit Bieringa’s documentary portrait The Man in the Hat and Jill Trevelyan’s prize-winning biography Peter McLeavey: the Life and Times of a New Zealand Art Dealer. Both film and book portray many of the qualities which made Peter a unique presence in New Zealand’s art scene for five decades.

Through the agency of NZ On Screen you can watch Luit Bieringa’s film online:
http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/the-man-in-the-hat-2009

Peter mentioned to me on a number of occasions that the Auckland Art Gallery had been one of his gallery’s key clients. Nearly 100 artworks have entered this Gallery’s collection through Peter’s insight.

Our most recent purchase from Peter was in 2013 of Ava Seymour’s unforgettable Health, Happiness and Housing photo collages. In 1989 he enabled two of Charles Tole’s most important early paintings to enter Auckland's public art collection. In 2007 he ensured that this Gallery could acquire W.D. Hammond’s painting Giant Eagle.  There are many other instances of Peter working strategically to assist the growth of public art collections.

Every art acquisition made from Peter’s gallery could have a story related by him attached to it. Peter had a joint focus – to profile New Zealand's artists and to foster art collections. He worked closely with his clients and could instantly recall their purchases in detail. Peter's complete dedication to local artists was a trait that many people have commented upon and admired.

Numerous New Zealand artists have been mentored and nurtured by the expertise and long-term support of Peter McLeavey. His entire life was one of committed advocacy for our painters, sculptors, photographers and printmakers.

Image credit:
Marti Friedlander
Peter McLeavey 1981

gelatin silver print

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of Marti Friedlander, 

with assistance from the Elise Mourant Bequest, 2001

Charles Heaphy 1820–1881

During the making of A Pioneering Spirit I was asked to provide an opportunity for a post-graduate student from the University of Auckland’s Art History Department. From my first meeting with Jacqueline Henderson I appreciated her curiosity for this early period in New Zealand’s art history. 

Surveyor, explorer, writer, company propagandist, topographical artist and draughtsman Charles Heaphy became Henderson’s focus, based on the works I selected for A Pioneering Spirit. Heaphy arrived in 1839 for employment with the New Zealand Company. He was an agent in the Company’s plan to systematically colonise New Zealand by surveying the land that his employers would sell to new settlers. Heaphy’s drawings, lithographs, watercolour paintings, charts and coastal profiles were used to promote the New Zealand Company and Heaphy would also file reports on his first-hand experience of life in the ‘colony’. After a 12-year service with the company Heaphy settled for life as a senior civil servant.

Heaphy’s story is as pioneering as the lives of individuals and families who came to improve their lot and contribute to the building of a ‘new nation’. Heaphy’s art illustrates aspects of both history and art history which continue to be unpacked by a new generation inspired by ‘the rise of New Zealand’.

– Ngahiraka Mason, Indigenous Curator, Māori Art


Charles Heaphy 1820–1881

‘. . . let man trouble himself little about the decadence of England but think about the rise of New Zealand . . .’
        – Anthony Trollope, The New Zealander

The period between 1840 and 1907 marks the arrival of British colonists to Aotearoa New Zealand. This colonial era was characterised by swift change which resulted from cross-cultural transformation and shifting boundaries.

Examining three artworks by Charles Heaphy which are included in the exhibition A Pioneering Spirit at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki reveals the idea of coming from ‘elsewhere’, the forming of relationships between Māori and Pākehā, and the establishment of a sense of belonging. The pictorial narrative Heaphy offers adds a unique perspective on a specific time in our ‘national’ history, right at the point when the relationship between Māori and the British was transforming New Zealand culture into a distinct antipodean identity.

Charles Heaphy was an English-born New Zealander. As a young 19 year old Heaphy departed Plymouth, England bound for New Zealand aboard the Tory on 9 May 1839. The Tory’s journey took four long months and the vessel set anchor in Queen Charlotte Sound on 18 August. Heaphy accepted the role as official draughtsman for The New Zealand Company, which required him to portray New Zealand in the best light possible to entice potential clients back in Britain. As such, he produced a large body of artwork which captured the hopes and desires of first wave colonials to New Zealand.

Although mainly recognised for his watercolours, Heaphy’s extensive oeuvre included working with pen and wash, lithographs and many sketches. The quaint illustrations of New Zealand life provided The New Zealand Company’s prospective clients with a sense of the familiar while encouraging the possibility of creating a new life unshackled by the traditional British system. Still apparent today is Heaphy’s ability to impart a sense of charm. In particular his landscape paintings retain an idyllic quality whereby the promise of a ‘better place’ remains as appealing today as it did over a century and a half ago.

Recognised, as one of Heaphy’s most famous images, A Sawyer’s Clearing in a Forest of Kauri, 1845 unapologetically represents New Zealand as a land full of economic prospects. As if from a scene out of Grimm’s fairy tales its progressive narrative is tempered only by the naïve sensibility which Heaphy’s style conjures.

Charles Heaphy, A Sawyer’s Clearing in a Forest of Kauri, 1845 

Dwarfed by the magnificent Kauri forest the gentlemen, dressed in civilised work attire, denounce any niggling doubts of a savage environment. Together, almost as if swaying to a tune they harmoniously labour undaunted by the huge task ahead. However, the enchanting illusion lay in stark contrast to the reality of working the dense New Zealand bush in the mid-19th century.

Heaphy’s artwork was typically shaped by the various employment positions he held. The first 12 years he worked for The New Zealand Company as a surveyor, explorer, writer, company propagandist, topographical artist and draughtsman; and then in 1848 he moved to Auckland where he took a role as a civil servant in the Survey Office. Early pioneers had to be resourceful, adventurist and determined to survive.

When he was 30 Heaphy began courting Kate Churton, the 21-year-old daughter of Reverend Churton. The couple married on 30 October 1851. Old St Paul’s, 1853 is a watercolour painting in memory of Heaphy’s father-in-law Reverend Churton. Immediately, the eye is drawn to the obelisk. The monument not only celebrates the first vicar of St Paul’s but also reflects the good relationship between father and son-in-law. In addition, the church setting highlights the importance placed on religious values in society and the Christian education of Māori. Clothed in traditional dress the group of Māori focus on a kneeling man reading from a book, most likely the bible, while two Pākehā men casually look on from the side. A didactic sense of salvation lingers while at the same time an unsettling conflict borders the scene with a garrison of soldiers walking in formation towards the entry point of the church highlighting impending British control. The political tension although evident is nonetheless characterised in a peaceful setting.

Charles Heaphy, Old Saint Paul’s, Auckland, 1853 

The arts can be a means of visually measuring cultural significance – be that visible or in Heaphy’s artwork, largely invisible. The dearth of Māori figures invigorates the perception of the ‘empty’ land. Equally, the Māori presented are affable, welcoming and compliant. As such, the narrative offered by form, facture, composition and perspective leaves behind a pictorial residue indicative of the Imperial British worldview.

Heaphy became the first ‘New Zealander’ to be awarded the Victorian Cross for coming to the aid of a fellow soldier in a skirmish with local Māori at Waiari, near Te Awamutu. It is the highest military award for gallantry in the face of the enemy available to British and Commonwealth soldiers. On many levels our first ‘hero’ is problematic both politically and socially; however, historically his work marked a distinctive point in the production of New Zealand’s cultural and political identity.

The desire to be seen and not forgotten – to be visible and not invisible to the world – meant early pioneers such as Heaphy looked back to Britain as a cultural anchor of identity while establishing themselves within a new society. It was a generation of transition in a liminal space where two cultures collided and altered one another. Over time Heaphy introduced a Māori narrative. The Driving Creek, Looking South, 1862 not only depicts the Gold rush in the Coromandel but also tensions over land.

Charles Heaphy, The Driving Creek, Coromandel, Looking South, 1862 

As the colonials scurry about the countryside in their eagerness to find gold, seated in the middle of the scene is a group of Māori. Here, Heaphy’s subtle style captures the political frictions between Māori and Pākehā. The central figure is an important Māori woman – the daughter of the local chief who had recently died. With rifle in hand, she silently yet poignantly delivers a Māori narrative by staking a claim to her land. The inclusion of her pictorial voice reflects Heaphy’s own observations, and might be seen as a moment in which the New Zealand Company propagandist, unwittingly or not, represents a real site of tension at the time – changing ideas about land ownership.

The voyage out to New Zealand transformed the British identity in terms of location, language and culture. Many first-wave colonists, including Heaphy, struggled to reconcile the notion of ‘home’ even though they ended up spending more than half their lives in New Zealand. Through his artwork, Charles Heaphy plays a significant role in identifying the journey of the colonial New Zealander and remains an integral actor in the construction of New Zealand’s cultural identity.

To commemorate his name, the Heaphy track, located in the Kahurangi National Park on the upper west side of the South Island, remains one of New Zealand’s great walks, and his artwork currently hangs in Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki as a celebrated figure in New Zealand’s history. 

– Jacqueline Henderson, Intern

Michael Parekowhai: The Promised Land

28 March – 21 June 2015, Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), Brisbane 

The word ‘retrospective’ comes from the Latin retrospectare, meaning ‘look back’. It must be quite confronting for a ‘mid-career’ artist working powerfully at full speed to be offered the opportunity of a retrospective: how to arc back in time, how to weigh up the balance of historical works, and how to present such a march through years of work while articulating a fresh perspective with necessary urgency. Michael Parekowhai: The Promised Land at QAGOMA is a fascinating and indeed spectacular response to this challenge. It is a knockout retrospective.

The exhibition appears to bend time as it spans the artist’s practice from 1989 to 2015. Conceptualised by the artist and beautifully curated by Maud Page, Deputy Director, QAGOMA, this exhibition is a tour de force that tips the notion of a historical assemblage of works on its head as 25 years of Parekowhai’s practice is summarised in a polished offering of absolute cohesion. It is described as an immersive environment for viewing art: a ‘memory palace’, and indeed the experience of being in GOMA’s vast, incredibly tough ground floor gallery space is transporting. Parekowhai is a consummate spatial thinker and his one-person incursion into this space is both fully confrontational and manipulative of the gallery itself while being acutely mindful of the audience’s experience.

The space is divided into thirds, which you move though as if in a Buñuel film or a de Chirico painting, experiencing a series of moody, intimate and unexpected encounters. In a somewhat voyeuristic state you enter through the back door of a two-storey coral coloured house (based on a dwelling in Sandringham, Auckland) to find a forlorn and gargantuan Captain Cook cast in stainless steel. Entitled The English Channel, 2015, Cook is found with friends, sitting on a model-making table, perhaps mid-voyage, exhausted and wondering where to from here.

The next space, what the artist calls ‘the homefront’, is entered through a massive Cuisenaire rod wall. This small entrance channels visitors out into a panoply of domestic-scaled rooms inhabited by perfectly attuned groupings of work that span time and references with alacrity. The strategem is an immensely canny one: to recast early works as if anew, making them, as the artist says, ‘a little sharper, a little speedier’. This tight, maze-like configuration tumbles you through claustrophobic non-museum spaces with rapid-fire surprise tactics. Visitors discover photographic images and sculptural works embedded in these prosaic rooms. Ideas take on disguises and double entendre abounds as Parekowhai alludes to religiousness and the military as well as the anxieties and obsessions of place and contemporary living.

On the first public day of the exhibition, in conversation with Page, the artist spoke about some of the drivers for the project: illumination, time, pace, sound and navigation. Memory collides and is warped with the immortalisation of moments: a lemon tree in a plastic bag is cast in bronze and humble golf balls on lurid Axminster carpet become a portal to the night sky view of Matariki (Pleiades) constellation from the Southern Hemisphere.

The third and final exhibition area is described by Parekowhai as the open space – the ‘back yard’ – with a particular reference to Australia’s vast geography. A voluminous space populated by the magnificent He Kōrero Pūrākau mo te Awanui o Te Motu: Story of a New Zealand River, the ornately carved red Steinway grand that featured in Parekowhai’s contribution to the 54th Venice Biennale 2011. Scattered around are cast bronze school chairs – the piano is for playing, and the chairs for sitting. The room is bathed in a coloured glow emanating from Rules of the Game, 2015, a flashing neon sign that reads ‘CLOSED’. The tension between rules and games are teased out here as Parekowhai navigates how to deal with the regulations of the institution, not breaking the rules exactly, but leaning up against the boundaries. It’s only at this moment that you look back, as any retrospective itself does, and see the second Cuisenaire rod wall. Gigantic and gaudy, it renders the viewer toy-like in scale. I know this is the exhibition’s endgame; however, I paused and watched people linger here, entranced, trying to rationalise it as Ravel-type torrents of piano sound washed the space and leaked back into the rooms, back to the watery liquid-like flow of Cook’s coat.

And the title? The Promised Land, 1948, is a rare self-portrait in which the artist, Colin McCahon, juxtaposes South Island landscape with biblical allegory and places a lit candle – a symbol of vanitas which connotes the transience of human life – at the composition’s centre. This painting, too, is divided into three intersecting spaces. Discussing his retrospective’s title, Parekowhai emphasised that the question was not ‘What is The Promised Land?’ but ‘Where is The Promised Land?’ 

Auckland will soon see a related work by Parekowhai, an ambitious public art project conceived for Queens Wharf. Meanwhile, three works by Parekowhai – Kiss the Baby Goodbye, 1995, Bill Jarvis, 2000 and Jeff Cooper, 2000 – are currently on display at the Gallery in the rehang of the contemporary New Zealand collection. 

– Rhana Devenport, Director

Art, artists and AIDS in New Zealand

Isn’t it frustrating that there are few ways to easily review historic broadcasts of New Zealand’s documentary film and television? Little of this material is straightforwardly accessible. While some thematically-based vintage moving image material is available, only a small amount is published online. One reason that vintage television material is difficult to access because of the demands of copyright.

We seldom encounter exhibitions which profile panels from New Zealand’s AIDS Memorial Quilt with moving images. So, I am grateful to curator-at-large (and photographer) Gareth Watkins for assembling Thirty; firstly for Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision at Wellington. A revamped and expanded version of the show is currently showing at their Auckland office until February 27 2015.

Thirty is a type of exhibition we infrequently encounter. I have never seen before a multi-part documentary about AIDS and its effects on New Zealanders. You can download the Auckland exhibition’s catalogue here. The Auckland exhibition includes additional material on women and AIDS.

The New Zealand AIDS Memorial Quilt was initiated in 1988 and is already dedicated to loved ones who died from AIDS related illnesses. The quilt is a multi-part artwork held, on deposit, by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. As a large-scale community-based memorial the quilt consists of 128 hand-crafted panels. All the panels can be viewed online. I have been wondering if the Memorial Quilt is actually the largest scale public art project yet attempted in New Zealand. Almost all of the AIDS Memorial Quilt was created by amateur artists.

On Monday 1 December, World Aids Day, I recalled that it is three decades since the first death caused by an AIDS related condition in New Zealand. AIDS has shaken up the art world everywhere. When City Gallery Wellington showed Robert Mapplethorpe’s exhibition (9 December 1995 – 20 February 1996) most visitors were aware before they visited the show that the artist (1946–1989) died of an illness caused by the AIDS antivirus. I wondered then, as I do know, if the manner of Robert's dying made people more curious about his art?

In New Zealand, during 1988, Fiona Clark made a multi-part artwork with photo-albums that address AIDS. These five albums remain one of New Zealand's most moving artworks dedicated to the lived presence of AIDS . Fiona's images are unforgettable and were created collaboratively with the people in the photographs. Her approach as an artist was ahead of its time locally and the significance of what she achieved is not yet widely understood. Written comments were added by each person to the album pages; reading these comments is like hearing the voice of each person speaking directly to you. Unlike Mapplethorpe’s art where the effects of AIDS are only apparent in his late self-portraits, Clark’s work is upfront and direct because it is so personal. Fiona and I will be holding a public conversation about her important 1988 project early next year.

The first exhibition in Auckland to address AIDS was Implicated and Immune – Artists Responses to AIDS (18 September – 18 October 1992) curated by Louis Johnston for the Fisher Gallery (now Te Tuhi) in Pakuranga. The show included artwork by John Barnett, Jack Body, Fear Brampton, Lillian Budd, Malcolm Harrison, Lesley Kaiser, Richard Killeen, Lily Lai’ita, Stephen Lovett, Richard McWhannell and Jane Zusters. The visitor programmes for this exhibition were the first occasion when local artists and commentators spoke publicly about AIDS and contemporary art. Early in 2015 Michael Lett Gallery will reprise the Fisher Gallery exhibition and return our attention to AIDS and artist responses.

For me, the combined effect of seeing the documentary footage included in Thirty is of a documentary collage focused totally on AIDS and its effect in New Zealand. This show is in fact built into one overall multi-part documentary presenting more than 180 minutes of ‘found’ footage, almost all of which has been publicly broadcast.

I recall the conversations I had during the early 1980s with the late Bruce Burnett, Nigel Baumber, Kerry Leitch and Neil Trubuhovich. This was at a time when amost nothing was being broadcast on local television about AIDS in New Zealand. Gareth Watkins's sampler now lets us review how AIDS was later publicised by on TV. This is a show that marks the 30th anniversary of the first New Zealand death from AIDS with respect. It is tough viewing yet it reveals the imminence of AIDS as an ongoing reality.


Image credit: 
Altered Lives 2012
In the Blink of An Eye produced by Bronwen Gray, animated by Sue Lim.
Stills Collection, The New Zealand Archive of Film, Television and Sound Ngā Taonga Whitiāhua Me Ngā Taonga Kōrero. 

With grateful thanks to Fiona Clark. I appreciate the assistance of Gareth Watkins and Paula Booker of The New Zealand Archive of Film, Television and Sound Ngā Taonga Whitiāhua Me Ngā Taonga Kōrero, Wellington.

Glenn Jowitt (1955–2014)

Yesterday I attended Glenn Jowitt’s funeral at the Grey Lynn Presbyterian Church on the corner of Crummer and Great North Road. The service was led with warmth, humour and reverence by the Reverend Nathan Pedro and the Reverend Mua Strickson-Pua. This well-known Church is a much cherished gathering place for Auckland’s Samoan, Tokelau and Tuvalu community. It is also one of this city’s loveliest Church centres and is sited just around the corner from Prime Road where Glenn lived for many years. 

Glenn’s mother, sister and brother were present. His niece also. They all spoke with much love and tenderness to the hundreds of friends present. It was the largest funeral gathering of any Auckland artist since the service for Don Binney at Saint Mary’s in Parnell. 

For all gathered there was a truly palpable presence of loss. Many tears were shed, many words were spoken. There were laughs and there were surprises at hearing delighting anecdotes. Glenn’s character emerged through a panoply of wonderful speeches. 

Allen, Glenn’s brother, asked me to address the gathering on behalf of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and I felt the weight of every staff member at every New Zealand Gallery and Museum on my shoulders. I had to speak in a way that expressed how united respect for this most sensitive and forward-thinking artist. In my speech, I focussed on Glenn as an artist. What follows is a sense of what I said, although I spoke to everyone much in the second person tense so that I spoke directly to Glenn…

Glenn Jowitt was a distinguished and important camera artist. Auckland’s loss is our country’s loss and his passing is the Pacific’s loss. When I learnt of Glenn Jowitt’s passing I entered a veil of memory, recalling this wonderful man, this brilliant artist and most loyal friend.

During the last decade Glenn and I spoke frequently about his on-going grapple with issues of his health. We would sometimes speak for an hour discussing what he was experiencing from and through his heart. We joked that it was Glenn’s blood machine, his heart was a living machine and his heart was a trusty yet unpredictable functionary that often held Glenn in its thrall.

Glenn would laugh about this fact but he also got angry especially when he was in a meditative mood. He knew the dilemma that his heart delivered to his life and he expected its uncertainty with wry chagrin, he experienced its demands with patient humour, with sudden annoyance and sometimes with raw disdain. It was as if he would not, he could not; deliver his future plans to any vicissitudes of chanced health. He would overcome. He had to. His many photography and publishing projects demanded it. Glenn wanted to determine an on-going life for his images and he made his projects occur simply by willing them into existence.

Glenn’s list of publications is a lengthy list and it is impressive. Read a short list that I have compiled.

Simply said, and the truth is this: no other contemporary photographer in the world created a comparable body of photography which is in competition with what Glenn discovered and recorded . He was never told that he must work on this or that subject and he ensured that all his creative choices came from his own volition.

Glenn felt a terrific need to keep on, to achieve, to overcome what he thought of as a frailty entirely outside of his body’s determination. Consequently, the word determination is his marker because determination is a key feature of this brave artist’s character.

In the 35 years that Glenn and I were friends I always knew that he was an artist who made plans and these plans were to record, to picture, to document life as he saw it. There is a bohemian spirit within Glenn’s art and it is a spirit that allowed him to be at places few other camera artists would work at.

Be it the back stalls of a rural racetrack.

Be it the homes of gang members.

Be it at a church on a Pacific atoll only accessible by sea.

Be it at a huge international arts festival somewhere in the Moana.

I have always been impressed by the fact that Glenn never, ever, pulled back from the ambitious nature of his photo-projects even though they frequently presented him with substantial problems.

Problems of funding, problems of diplomacy, problems of accessibility, problems of timing and schedules, problems of publication. He surmounted all these issues because he wanted his artwork to be a vehicle of advocacy for the many people that he collaborated with. Especially peoples of the Pacific.

I first met Glenn in the 1970s, very soon after Outreach (later Art Station, now Studio One Toi Tū) opened as a public access art studio in Ponsonby Road. I attended one of the early inner city exhibitions of contemporary Pacific craft to be held in any Auckland public gallery. Naturally, it was a huge community event and some of those present had never encountered a photographer who was so determined to document their opening event. They showed Glenn what we call ‘kawa’, the protocol of necessary behaviour.

Glenn was very well-known throughout the Pacific for his ability and reputation as a photographer, yet Glenn remained humble as a person. As the years went on, Glenn became more humble. And it was at the beginning of his career when he first arrived in Auckland that he was shown humility, he was tutored in humility and this was a true lesson that he never forgot. The elders spoke to Glenn and he listened and understood their message.

I interviewed Glenn at length some months before his death. We spoke about his photographic practice and he reiterated how all of his artwork came from his own volition. Glenn had the insight to know that we live in a Pacific place and that Pacific peoples are emblems marking the massive change that is happening in our society. We are becoming here each day, in every way, more Pacific as a people together.

Glenn understood that the history of the Pacific has much to teach us all. In focussing on the peoples of the Pacific, he travelled extensively throughout the Pacific. Arguably more than any other photographer of his generation. He shared his images generously, always.

Glenn cherished the astonishingly important traditions of the Pacific – be they expressed in heritage, traditional and customary ways as well as in contemporary and urban ways. The energy and the talent of Pacific peoples became one of the beacons which Glenn Jowitt’s art sought to affirm, acknowledge and celebrate. Glenn was trusted. He undertook his legwork properly and with politeness and correctness.

I have always thought that Glenn was one of New Zealand’s most assiduous camera artists; he was determined, patient and tenacious. In a career which spanned more than 35 years, he established an international reputation as a documentary photographer.

I spoke to the much loved kaumatua Don Soloman yesterday and Don kindly confirmed what I recalled. It was Don that gave Glenn Jowitt his very first exhibition at Auckland when he moved from Christchurch. Don recalled that no Auckland dealer gallery would consider showing Glenn’s photography then. This is over 35 years ago. So, Don kindly offered Glenn the recently opened Gallery space at Outreach. The opening was a wonderful party and I think it was from that very moment that Glenn became an Auckland and took this city’s multicultural reality to his heart.

There is no irony that Glenn’s Auckland reputation was born in a community gallery as Glenn was always an artist who took the aspirations of all the many communities that he had the privilege and the pleasure of working with to the core of his creativity. It is this love of people that singles Glenn Jowitt out. He shared his talent and he gave of himself freely. Glenn’s art, his photographs, is his life’s gift to us. 

Image credits:

Glenn Jowitt (1955–2014)
Ashburton 9 September 1978 1982
black and white photograph
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki
purchased 1983

Glenn Jowitt (1955-2014)
Baldie (Shane Piripi Turner) 1979
black and white photograph
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki
 purchased 1985

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

Recent acquisition – Petrus Van Der Velden

Stanley Andrew
Petrus Van Der Velden
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
purchased 2013

Not many people know Petrus Van Der Velden and Vincent Van Gogh were friends. They were intimate enough for Van Gogh to write about Van Der Velden in three letters to his brother Theo. I had their friendship in mind when, recently, I acquired for the Gallery's collection the final photo-portrait of  Van Der Velden made by Stanley Andrew at Wellington during 1909.

Andrew was Wellington's most active official portraitist prior to World War I and 95 of his negatives are held at Wellington's Alexander Turnbull Library. Artists like Eileen Duggan, Anna Pavlova and Dorothy Kate Richmond were recorded by Andrew. Yet, it appears that Petrus Van Der Velden was the earliest artist to commission a portrait while Andrew was a photographer. He began his career using a quasi-pictorialist, almost moody style. Later he refined this expressionist approach into one with a deeper focus and less gradation in overall lighting. This results in a more flattering response to your subjects and they often don't look their age.

I was attracted to the portrait of Van Der Velden not only for its physical quality but because it reveals the difficulties and strain that living in New Zealand as a full time artist had been for him. He had a tetchy temperament and did not like the fact that the art scene here was nowhere as modern as what he knew in the Holland which he had departed from.

Modern art reached New Zealand with the arrival of James Nairn and Van Der Velden in 1890. Both were full-time artists and they wanted to maintain a serious and professional career. Van Der Velden was determined and opinionated but we simply do not know, as Rodney Wilson has noted, why the painter immigrated to New Zealand.

The Canterbury College School of Art in Christchurch refused to give him employment, not a surprising decision due to its insular suspicion of outsiders. Consequently, Van Der Velden became an itinerant immigrant – living 8 years in Christchurch, 6 years in Sydney and 9 years in Wellington.

The first image here is the vintage print that Auckland Art Gallery has recently purchased, with the original photographers' tinted paper and strawcard mounting mattes. It is signed at left by the photographer and has the Stanley Andrew blind-stamp at the lower right hand side of the print.

Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand
S.P. Andrew collection (PAColl -3739) reference 1/1-014987;G

Here is a cropped contact print of the variant Stanley Andrew portrait made at the same time. It is taken from the negative held in the Alexander Turnbull Library in the National Library of New Zealand. He appears more animated than the  portrait which we acquired, but his head appears to large for the body and is distorted in scale.

Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand
S.P. Andrew collection (PAColl -3739) reference 1/1-014988;G

This is an entire uncropped scan of the negative of the portrait that the Gallery has acquired. Note how the hands have been cropped out to give provide more prominence to the artist's face. It is almost heroic in its final cropped version. I believe that he made this version for his family's own use and not for any form of self-promotion.

Am I correct in noting that Petrus Van Der Velden was a friend of Vincent Van Gogh? Or was he simply one of his acquaintances? I keep coming back to the conclusion that he was a friend; especially judging from tone of Vincent's comments about Petrus included in three letters that he wrote to his brother Leo.

On Wednesday 1 November 1882 Vincent comments on seeing two drawings by Pieter (Petrus) in the magazine De Zwaluw.

On, or about, Saturday 21 April 1883, Vincent notes: "I met Van der V. once, and he made a good impression on me at the time. I was reminded of the character of Felix Holt the radical by Eliot. There’s something broad and rough in him that pleases me greatly — something like the roughness of torchon. A man who evidently doesn’t seek civilization in outward things but is much further inwardly, much much much further than most people. In short, he’s a true artist, and I’d like to get to know him for I would trust him and I’m sure I would learn from him."

On, or about, Wednesday 11 July 1883, Vincent writes "I saw Van der Velden once last year — at De Bock’s one evening when we looked at etchings. I’ve already written to you that he made a very favorable impression on me at the time,although he said little and wasn’t much company that evening. But the impression he immediately made on me was that he was a solid, genuine painter."

All of Vincent Van Gogh’s letters have been translated into English and are available to read online.
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On 9 July 1896, Lawrence Jones of Dunedin reproduced the following early portrait of Petrus Van Der Velden. (I am grateful to the wonderful blog Early Otago Photographers for this image). Van Der Velden was aged 59 years and about to become a New Zealand citizen, but he was not prospering as a fulltime artist and had almost halved his fee for private life classes (based on 13 sessions of 2.5 hours each). There is a vast difference between this first portrait of Van Der Velden in New Zealand and the final one which we have acquired.

Peter McLeavey – The life and times of a New Zealand art dealer

I devoured Jill Trevelyan’s biography of Peter McLeavey in a sitting. This fascinating book about the life and times of New Zealand’s renowned art dealer is a magnetic text filled with treats about art and artists. Many Aucklanders may be unaware of McLeavey’s significance but Wellingtonians sure know who he is and what he does. Peter is recognised on the city’s streets.

Since 1968, Peter McLeavey’s life has been dedicated to promoting our visual artist’s achievements. I reckon he has achieved more positive outcomes for New Zealand’s cultural scene than many MPs. Growth within the arts has occurred hugely over the last 40 years and Peter’s professional life has helped foster this creativity.

Peter is the pre-eminent New Zealand art dealer. No question! He has been a catalyst for numerous artists’ success. Not only has he had the longest term as an art dealer in Australasia, he has worked longer with more artists than any New Zealand curator or collector. Simply put, Peter has not only helped create a national foundation for our contemporary art scene he has been one of the key reasons why our visual art scene is as vibrant and international in its outreach.

Peter initiated his vocation as art dealer on 4 September 1968 with his first exhibition – M.T. Woollaston: Paintings, drawings and watercolours. Jill Trevelyan deftly sets the scene quoting McLeavey, 'It was a big thing for me, the gallery opening, but I didn’t want to push it as a big event. I was taking it one day at a time. I thought to myself, Don’t pump it up too much because it might not last.' The first artwork Peter sold was purchased by scholar Margaret Orbell and artist Gordon Walters. News spread of the show’s success and Milan Mrkusich conjectured, 'If sales keep up it could mean exhibiting in Wellington would be worthwhile for artists in other centres.' Jill is good at progressing Peter’s story as a narrative intertwined with close relationships to artists.

His family is brought into focus also and this is one of the searingly honest features of this book – it shows that the artist’s family has been integral to the Peter McLeavey Gallery. His wife and children knew at all times Peter was ambitious for the gallery to succeed and there was a cost to the family for the dealer’s dedication and obsession with work. His wife Hilary saw her partner’s personality and drive clearly and this honesty contributes to the impressive integrity of the biography because it mixes good with bad, negative with positive in fair measure. I felt that I was closer to the reality of the McLeavey family than I often feel when reading art-related biographies.

Jill Trevelyan keeps away from much art commentary and her book concentrates on the work and life of the art dealer rather than the art itself. For me, there is much creativity in Peter McLeavey himself. While he never claims to be an artist, he had a talented artist’s ability to make art look terrific in the simple and austere architecture of his premises. Everything was always about the art, it always came first.

No other New Zealand book so convincingly reveals our art scene’s milieu as it has been lived by one of its key figures. Here is the biography that Peter McLeavey well deserves. The Wellington art dealer is the real deal. A mutual friend called Peter 'a bona fide saint'.

A review of: Jill Trevelyan, Peter McLeavey – The Life and Times of a New Zealand Art Dealer, Te Papa Press, Wellington, 2013 

Image credit:
Marti Friedander
Peter McLeavey 2000
gelatin silver print
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of Marti Friedlander
with assistance from the Elise Mourant Bequest, 2001

What did the Reverend Dr John Kinder look like?

Since the exhibition Kinder's Presence opened, I've been getting asked what John Kinder looked like. There aren't many known portraits of him. The studio portrait above is in the Auckland Libraries's collection. I believe it was taken during the early to mid 1870s, when the artist was in his fifties. Kinder was apparently bald from early manhood and he wore a beard for his adult life. He apparently believed that he was one of the few Anglican clergymen to sport facial whiskers. There is certainly the look of a patriarch about him and the beard does make him seem older than he was.

This portrait is currently credited as being taken by James D Richardson by the Sir George Grey Special Collections of Auckland Libraries but it is too early for Richardson to have made it himself. It is more likely that Richardson printed it from someone else's glass negative.

Below is the portrait painting of Dr Kinder that Gottfried Lindauer was commissioned to produce by Kinder's students at St John's Theological College. Kinder is dressed formally both as a Doctor of Theology and in the formal Anglican ecclesiatical attire that he is said to have much liked. The Lindauer portrait is undated but must come from the last years of the priest's life. The look and ceremony of High Church Anglicanism fascinated the priest and is said to have alienated him from his Church cohorts at Auckland.

John Kinder was, in fact, proud of his sartorial elegance according to Professor Michael Dunn, who spoke about Kinder's personality here last week. Michael also suggested that Kinder always seemed to appear old.

I reckon that Lindauer used this late photographic portrait of John Kinder as the basis of his painting. Kinder had one of the most important private libraries in New Zealand and it is totally appropriate that he be photographed as if momentarily interrupted in his reading.

Image Credits:
attributed to John D Richardson
John Kinder
photograph
collection: Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 4-1289

Gottfried Lindauer
Reverend Dr John Kinder
oil on canvas
Saint John's College, Auckland
gift of the students of Dr Kinder

Unknown
John Kinder photograph
Cycloepedia of New Zealand

From Godwit/Kuaka to Framing Place

Ralph Hotere’s painting Godwit/Kuaka, which has been on display since we reopened in September 2011, has been taken down to make way for a new exhibition. The 18-metre long Godwit/Kuaka is remarkable, as was its presence in the long Gibbs gallery on our ground floor. Contained in the title of the painting is a symbolic association to the annual migration of the kuaka from the earthly portal of Te Reinga or Te Rerenga Wairua to Siberia and the shores of Asia. Such things remind us that change is constant and inevitable.

Replacing Godwit/Kuaka is the exhibition Framing Place, which looks at the scope and range of sky and landscape images that reflect our place in the world. The artworks in the exhibition by Laurence Aberhart, Andrew McLeod and Jae Hoon Lee indicate how the literal and metaphoric framing of land also shows the imprint of people, and in so doing, conveys a relationship to place. These depictions of the natural environment evoke emotional connections to a birthplace and homeland.

Aberhart’s Taranaki photographs include scenes that dramatically demonstrate the effects of different kinds of light and the way this and the area’s weather influences our feelings about the omnipresent mountain and its surrounding landscape.

Jae Hoon Lee’s work Sunday comprises two back-illuminated images showing an arrangement of puffy cumulus clouds which have the appearance of an explosion.

The painting Large Green Landscape, by Andrew McLeod, is an imaginary, peopled landscape; a tableau that might act as a frieze. This sampling of contemporary art offers an open-ended inquiry into framing place in Aotearoa New Zealand.


Image credits:
Ralph Hotere
Godwit/Kuaka (detail) 1977
lacquer on hardboard
Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
gift of Auckland International Airport Ltd 1997

Laurence Aberhart 
Taranaki (and cloud), Wanganui, 15 April 1986 1986
gelatin silver print 
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki 
gift of the Patrons of the Auckland Art Gallery, 1998 

Jae Hoon Lee
Sunday 2005
duratran print, aluminium, Perspex (lightbox)
Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, 2006

Andrew McLeod
Large Green Landscape 2012
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
purchased with funds from the Elise Mourant Bequest, 2012