B.
Heart in the high country: Austen Deans (1915 - 2011)
Behind the scenes
For Austen Deans, OBE, painting was an expression of his love of the outdoors and, in particular, the Canterbury high country.
Born at Riccarton House, Christchurch in 1915, Austin Deans grew up on the family farm near Sheffield in North Canterbury (and near Kowai, the subject of this 1952 painting). He trained at the Canterbury College School of Art between 1934 and 1938, where he continued his interest in the outdoors through membership of the College tramping club. As he revealed to Gallery director Jenny Harper in an interview for the 2007 exhibition Art School 125, he 'rather wished to be a mountain guide', but his mother dissuaded him from that early ambition. Though he 'loved sculpture', he majored in painting because it allowed him to work outdoors rather than being tied to a city studio.
Deans was the last of a generation of painters, which also included Bill Sutton, whose work was strongly focused on the Canterbury landscape. He will remain most well known for his paintings of Mt Peel and the surrounding area where he lived and worked for over 60 years. Deans excelled at the watercolour medium, combining his love of tramping and plein air painting to produce some outstanding views of the Canterbury high country.
'It was really my attraction to the mountains that started me painting' he said, 'and it's never left me'.
Click here to hear the rest of Austen's Art School 125 interview.
Click here to see all the works by Austen Deans in the Gallery's collection.
Austen Deans Camp in the Kowai 1952. Oil on canvas. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, presented by the Christchurch City Council in memory of former Town Clerk, Mr H.S. Feast OBE 1961.
Related reading: In the Vast Emptiness
Exhibition
In the Vast Emptiness
8 January – 21 August 2016
The Canterbury landscape as captured by twentieth century painters.
Collection
Austen A Deans Camp in the Kowai
For Austen Deans, painting was an expression of his love of the outdoors and, in particular, the Canterbury high country. Born at Riccarton House, Christchurch in 1915, he grew up on the family farm near Sheffield in North Canterbury (and near Kowai, the subject of this 1952 painting). He trained at the Canterbury College School of Art between 1934 and 1938, where he continued his interest in the outdoors through membership of the College tramping club. He once said that he had 'rather wished to be a mountain guide', but his mother dissuaded him from that early ambition. Though he loved sculpture, he specialised in painting because it allowed him to work outdoors rather than being tied to a city studio. Deans was the last of a generation of painters, which also included Doris Lusk and Bill Sutton, whose work was strongly focused on the Canterbury landscape. He is most well-known for his paintings of Mt Peel and the surrounding area, where he lived and worked for over 60 years. 'It was really my attraction to the mountains that started me painting' he said, 'and it's never left me'.
(Turn, Turn, Turn: A Year in Art, 27 July 2019 – 8 March 2020)
Notes
Canterbury Landscape by Colin McCahon
In 2014 we purchased an important landscape work by Colin McCahon. Curator Peter Vangioni speaks about this new addition to Christchurch Art Gallery’s collection.
Notes
Mountains, Cass by Rita Angus
This article first appeared as 'The wonders of waterolours' in The Press on 11 August 2015.
Notes
100 years of the Cass field station
Last weekend the University of Canterbury Biology Department celebrated the 100th anniversary of the field station at Cass with a symposium on Cass followed up with a field trip to the station.
Notes
Wainui - to the west of the long harbour
"I like Wainui, quaint, charming, rather like a Pieter Bruegel subject with the haymaking in progress." Rita Angus to Douglas Lilburn, 1943
Notes
CASS
This week 77 years ago Rita Angus visited Cass on a sketching holiday with Louise Henderson and Julia Scarvell that resulted in several paintings including the Christchurch Art Gallery's Cass.
Notes
CASS
André Hemer's exhibition CASS is well worth a visit if you are near the Christchurch Art Gallery's space above NG on Madras street.
Notes
Another nor’wester descends on Canterbury
Some people fear them, others revel in the unforgiving dry heat – love them or hate them the legendary Canterbury nor'wester is one of the defining features of this region in the summer months and there is a real doozy blowing outside at the moment.
Notes
Sutton high-fives McCahon
Nothing made it into a W.A. Sutton painting by accident, and the white line that rises diagonally through the sky in Plantation Series II is no exception.
Article
Exquisite Treasure Revealed
Canterbury Museum holds two albums compiled by Diamond Harbour artist Margaret Stoddart. The older of the two, containing images featured in this Bulletin, and itself currently exhibited in the Gallery, covers the period 1886–96. The album is handsomely bound in maroon, and stamped M.O.S. in gold. It contains a sort of travelogue by way of black and white photographs set amongst decorative painting, mostly of native flora, with some locality and date information.