Brian Rainger’s 1960s Piha Parties
As Caught by Arne Loot
ALYSON HUNTER
ARNE LOOT Untitled photograph of a party at Brian Rainger’s house in Piha, c.1960s Black-and-white photograph
I first met Arne Loot in the Cats’ Bar in the Kiwi Hotel. He had straight blonde hair cut long, and wore a brown blouson jacket, standing out from the dark suits and white shirts of the other male drinkers. I had heard of Arne, as we both lived in Titirangi, 13 miles out of Auckland. He was known as the Dutchman of Scenic Drive, who played classical music down the party telephone, which showed he was a delightful maverick.
In the 1960s the pub closed at six p.m., so I was pleased to cadge a lift from him back home instead of getting the ‘six o’clock swill’, the bus full of drunk workers.
I visited his house which he had built himself, hidden in the bush. He had a record collection of the greatest jazz players, that I loved listening to.
He knew I was interested in photography and so showed me his cameras and lenses. He was interested in his work being in National Geographic; he must have known the formalism of Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray, but for him a documentary style was his goal. I did wonder what he would find in the Auckland suburbs instead of the exotica of Ceylon or Cambodia. For him though New Zealand was a paradise, I saw him take photographs and hear his chuckle and know his commercial shots would be in the bag, with his unfailing exactitude. I did do some modelling for his clients, advertisements for carpet manufacturers and cheese producers.
Piha is that marvellous place with its proud Lion Rock and expanse of black volcanic sand and tumbling surf, my family camping there every year, my parents falling in love with it and moving to Titirangi in 1948.
You can see in Arne’s images of Brian Rainger’s parties―on show at Te Uru, in a project directed by Sir Bob Harvey―a halcyon time, the gay abandon of people who had jobs, cars, houses, travel. Arne would be able to photograph the people of his paradise, their confidence a part of those times.
The parties in Titirangi and Piha were the result of a new middle class that was growing after the war. Looking back at them they seemed a mixture of Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party and Fellini’s Satyricon, with the women wearing shift dresses patterned with psychedelic swirls, worn with high white boots. The interest in science fiction begat a colour- block dress worn with a severe bob but, since the party- goers were in the Pacific, aloha shirts and grass skirts could come out to play, and hibiscus flowers were worn in the hair. The music would be the Beach Boys, Status Quo, Fleetwood Mac. The shadows moved to the twist, the jerk, and the frug, turning into a slow foxtrot as the morning sunlight would shoot across the Tasman Sea, viewed from decks and balconies.
Arne is still in that house in Scenic Drive at 97 years of age, surrounded by the call of the tūī honey-eater and the soft rain on the ferns, his photographs now a historical record of a vanished time.
ARNE LOOT Party host Brian Rainger (front/centre) and The Music Convention: Robert ‘Bob’ O’Donnell (left) on 12-string guitar, Sean Kelly (back) on drums, Greg O’Donnell (right) on Hofner bass, c.1966 Black-and-white photograph
ARNE LOOT Artist Charles McPhee (left) and friends, c.1960s Black-and-white photograph
ARNE LOOT Untitled photograph of a party at Brian Rainger’s house in Piha, c.1960s Black-and-white photograph
ARNE LOOT Untitled photograph of a party at Brian Rainger’s house in Piha, c.1960s Black-and-white photograph
ARNE LOOT Untitled photograph of a party at Brian Rainger’s house in Piha, c.1960s Black-and-white photograph
ARNE LOOT Untitled photograph of a party at Brian Rainger’s house in Piha, c.1960s Black-and-white photograph