Editorial
As summer ends, we see a number of exhibitions of New Zealand art travelling throughout the country. These shows, thanks to a touring structure assisted by the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council, often stay together for quite some time. It was possible to have been present at the opening of the Auckland City Art Gallery’s New Image exhibition in February 1983; and then remind oneself of a particularly exciting show when it made its final appearance in Hamilton eighteen months later.
When each of these exhibitions is finally however, dismantled and the works dispersed, it is the catalogue that provides its more or less permanent reminder and record. Many excellent catalogues have been produced recently. The Auckland City Art Gallery was particularly prolific - their productions ranging from the small book published jointly by Heinemanns in conjunction with their Raymond McIntrye exhibition to the exquisite slim publication, designed by Colin Maclaren, that Denis O’Connor himself produced to accompany his Songs of the Gulf.
O'Connor's was a very personal show; and three of the articles in this issue look at exhibitions imbued with the truth and reality of a particular artist's vision. We asked Denis O'Connor to write his own account of the regional and cultural themes of his striking and magical Songs of the Gulf, and on the artistic lineage of his individual vocabulary of clay. Equally personal was the collection Hotere's Hoteres, curated by Patricia Bosshard and mounted at the Centre Gallery in Hamilton. Gordon H. Brown took advantage of this occasion to consider the long term development of the Otago painter's art. Finally, a smaller but significant occasion at Auckland's Outreach is set by Cheryll Sotheran within its 'political parameters'.
When the New Zealand Sugar Company invited five photographers from different regions of the country to contribute to The Chelsea Project, it was with the aim of provoking the reactions of five different artistic personalities to a seemingly unpromising inspiration. The surprising outcome is looked at in this issue by Sheridan Keith.
Robert Ellis and Ray Thorburn have been contributing their individual vision to New Zealand art for many years. Ellis is probably best known for his ten years of Motorways paintings an ambitious series in which images from the urban experience provide a springboard for the artist's response to a changing environment. Warwick Brown discusses this decade in Ellis's work.
Wellington artist Ray Thorburn has produced his work very much in response to a particular aesthetic philosophy. John Roberts makes an approach to 'the creative dynamics' behind Thorburn's relatively small oeuvre.
Two younger artists also are considered in this Autumn issue: Andrew Bogle and Charo Oquet. Bogle's adaptation of frottage - his rubbed works on paper - is discussed by Roger Horrocks; and, in an interview with Art New Zealand, Charo Oquet talks of problems in coming from the Dominican Republic to work within the pressures of the New Zealand environment and way of life.
One of a number of expatriate artists - some not so well known - Rhona Haszard had a short and brilliant career in Europe and the Middle East before her tragic death in Alexandria in 1929. Here, Anne Kirker briefly surveys her life and art. In nineteenth century art, Ian Lochhead looks at some recently dis_overed photography by the Canterbury architect Benjamin Mountfort.