Colin McCahon:
His Work Spanning Four Decades

In 1958 Colin McCahon was recognised as one of the leading painters of his generation by the Auckland City Art Gallery when the McCahon: Woollaston Retrospective exhibition was shown. In his introduction to the catalogue of this exhibition, John Caselberg confirmed that Colin McCahon's paintings were based on a profound study of western art, an acute visual perceptiveness comparable only with the musician's sense of perfect pitch, and many years of unremitting labour, painting, testing, rejecting, learning and continually progressing.

'They result from the dedicated creative painter's unassuagable need and his ability to impose order upon disorder; to transpose insights into visual mages and these in turn into works of art; to create.'

COLIN McCAHON 
The Angel of the Annunciation 1974
oil on card board,
684 x 521 mm. (Collection the Artist)

Since the 'fifties, the breadth of Colin McCahon's creative achievement has become incontestable - the range of his art revealed in many exhibitions in both public and private galleries throughout New Zealand: most recently in McCahon's 'Necessary Protection', organised by the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, assisted by the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council of New Zealand, and consisting of work done since the big McCahon Survey Exhibition, mounted by the Auckland City Art Gallery in 1972. The 'Necessary Protection' exhibition consisted for the most part of work exhibited at the Barry Lett Galleries in Auckland or the Peter McLeavey Gallery in Wellington. This exhibition is still touring the regional galleries.

In this issue of Art New Zealand is a series of articles which discuss aspects of McCahon's work spanning four decades. Nine individual writers contribute to an understanding of his work, take up themes in it, examine his whole aesthetic, write of him as a teacher, colleague and friend.

The entire section of texts on Colin McCahon has been compiled by Gordon H. Brown as contributing editor to this issue.