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Raymond McIntyre: A Modernist View
Dynamic and progressive paintings and woodcuts from one of Aotearoa’s New Zealand foremost modernist artists.
Living Archives
Archives that tell stories about artists and history in Aotearoa
Whāia te Taniwha
Māori artists consider the enduring relevance of taniwha in Aotearoa.
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Collection
Ivy Fife Frog Rock
The unique limestone rock formation known locally as Frog Rock, near Weka Pass, is a memorable marker on the journey inland north of Ōtautahi Christchurch. This is limestone country, and the overhanging rocks in this area were used extensively by Māori for shelter while undertaking mahika kai trips inland. Many are adorned with exceptional examples of rock art drawings by ancestors of mana whenua. Ivy Fife has simplified the features of this landscape into flat blocks of colour with an almost graphic, poster-like quality.
mahika kai ~ food gathering
mana whenua ~ Māori with authority over particular land or territory
He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil (from August 2024)
Collection
Jeffrey Harris Title unknown
Jeffrey Harris grew up on his parents’ isolated Horomaka Banks Peninsula dairy farm in the 1950s and 1960s, and developed his drawing talent early. He was determined to be an artist – a pursuit that drew little encouragement from his parents but was quietly nurtured by his maternal grandparents, whom Jeffrey described as “the gentle and secretive side of the family”. This work was made in 1969, which was an important year for Jeffrey. He formed friendships with the Dunedin painters Michael Smither and Ralph Hotere, who did much to encourage him including arranging an exhibition of his work in the foyer of Otago Museum in 1969. They, along with others from Dunedin’s art circles, motivated Jeffrey to move to Dunedin in 1970 to take up painting full-time. It was here that he met the artist Joanna Margaret Paul whom he married in 1971.
(Jeffrey Harris: The Gift, 1 October 2022 – 12 March 2023 )
Collection
Jeffrey Harris Untitled from the Judith series
The conté and ink drawings from the Judith Series, which curator Justin Paton described as swirling visual love poems, are Patricia Bosshard-Browne’s most favoured work by Jeffrey. When they were first exhibited at the Bosshard Gallery in Dunedin in 1979 she attempted to keep the series of ten drawings together by offering them as a complete set to various institutions and collectors. The series was broken up, however, and Patricia acquired these two drawings for her personal collection. The drawings are ambitious in scale and have an intensity to their mark making. Highly symbolic, the dinghy represents a new journey while the single heart beats as one between the couple representing their love and affection.
(Jeffrey Harris: The Gift, 1 October 2022 – 12 March 2023)
Collection
Jeffrey Harris Untitled from the Judith series
The conté and ink drawings from the Judith Series, which curator Justin Paton described as swirling visual love poems, are Patricia Bosshard-Browne’s most favoured work by Jeffrey. When they were first exhibited at the Bosshard Gallery in Dunedin in 1979 she attempted to keep the series of ten drawings together by offering them as a complete set to various institutions and collectors. The series was broken up, however, and Patricia acquired these two drawings for her personal collection. The drawings are ambitious in scale and have an intensity to their mark making. Highly symbolic, the dinghy represents a new journey while the single heart beats as one between the couple representing their love and affection.
(Jeffrey Harris: The Gift, 1 October 2022 – 12 March 2023)
Collection
Jeffrey Harris Untitled from the Imogen's Grave series
Untitled from the Imogen’s Grave Series depicts the pristine white headstone of Jeffrey’s and Joanna Margaret Paul’s infant daughter Imogen Rose Harris at the Catholic cemetery in Akaroa. Imogen was born at Barrys Bay in February 1976, but was diagnosed with a heart condition and tragically died before the year was out. A parents grief of the loss of his baby daughter is expressed through the headstone in the centre of the work, which is enveloped in a bleeding heart balanced on a cup. It’s a work loaded with symbolism; the headstone and heart flanked by two trees set against the Akaroa Harbour landscape. This work is one of a number Jeffrey created in pastel and acrylic on paper in memory of his daughter that culminated in several large oil paintings. Together with Joanna’s incredibly moving book of poems titled Imogen (1978), they display the deep sorrow and grief of both parents at losing their daughter.
(Jeffrey Harris: The Gift, 1 October 2022 – 12 March 2023)
Collection
Jeffrey Harris Untitled from the Judith series
Jeffrey began the Judith Series during 1978 and 1979. This highly personal body of work chronicled and analysed the joys and heartbreak of ending and starting relationships. A couple appear repeatedly throughout the series, together yet apart, on a lonely beach. They stand stiffly, awkwardly facing each other, often between them a bird pierces its breast with its beak in a symbol of self-sacrifice.
(Jeffrey Harris: The Gift, 1 October 2022 – 12 March 2023)