B.
Bill Hammond Watching for Buller. 2 1993. Acrylic on canvas. On loan to the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū from the artist
Playing the Drums at the Gallery
Note
Over forty works by Lyttelton-based artist Bill Hammond, some of which have never been seen in public before, will be on display at the Gallery from this weekend.
Curator Peter Vangioni said he was delighted to be able to show the work of New Zealand's foremost contemporary artists, who also happens to be a talented drummer.
Bill Hammond: Playing the Drums has been co-curated with the artist himself and features rarely seen works from his private collection alongside pieces from the Gallery and several other Christchurch collections.
“It’s a great opportunity for Christchurch to come together and celebrate one of our own,” Vangioni says.
“The exhibition spans several decades of Hammond’s work and include drawings, prints and paintings from the early 1980s through to some of his most recent pieces, including his iconic bird paintings.”
Hammond is best known for his hauntingly beautiful half-human, half-bird creatures. In these paintings, figures with bird-like heads adopt humanlike stances, conveying a feeling of quiet despair as they gaze out into the distance.
In Waiting for Buller. Bar (1993) Hammond’s figures personify New Zealand’s native birds with a wry sense of humour. Playing pool, drinking wine and relaxing, they wait for the arrival of New Zealand’s colonial ornithologist (or bird stuffer, as Hammond likes to call him) Walter Buller.
Local audiences will also have their first face-to-face encounter with one of Hammond’s largest paintings, Bone Yard Open Home, Cave Painting 4, Convocation of Eagles (2008), which has never been on display in Christchurch before. One of Hammond’s best-known works, the Gallery’s The Fall of Icarus (1995), will make a welcome return on display for the first time in over a decade.
Drumming and percussion, along with an extremely wide ranging interest in music, have been constants throughout Hammond’s life. He played washboard for the legendary New Zealand folk group Band of Hope Jug Band in the late 1960s, and rock drummers, electric guitarists, classical musicians, DJs and flamboyant singers all make appearances in his work, which often also features song titles and lyrics.
Bill Hammond Bone Yard Open Home, Cave Painting 4, Convocation of Eagles 2008. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and McLeavey Gallery
Related
Exhibition
Bill Hammond: Playing the Drums
3 August 2019 – 19 January 2020
A selection of work by Aotearoa New Zealand's favourite painter/drummer
Collection
Bill Hammond Watching for Buller. 2
This work was displayed with this label to mark the artist's death in 2021:
All of us at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū were very saddened to hear of the death of Bill Hammond in late January, and our thoughts are with Bill’s family and friends. Bill’s contribution to the art of Aotearoa New Zealand was original and unforgettable, and he occupied a special, beloved place within the arts communities of Ōtautahi Christchurch and Whakaraupō Lyttelton.
Bill was raised in Christchurch and attended the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts in the late 1960s. In 1989, he joined a number of other New Zealand artists on an expedition to the sub-Antarctic and the Auckland Islands. This trip had a profound effect on the artist; it was from this point that his highly regarded bird paintings emerged in his practice.
Bill’s paintings are favourites for many of our visitors – works they return to over and over again. His wry sense of humour and generosity of spirit (once you got past that famous reserve) will be missed by many here at the Gallery. Recently, we had been working closely with Bill on a new publication focussed on his paintings from the past 15 years, which includes numerous tributes by artists to Bill and his work. Bill had that rare quality in an artist – someone who is highly regarded by his peers, and whose works appeal to people from all walks of life. We were honoured to have the opportunity to work with him this one last time.
Bill will be missed. We mark his passing with the deepest of respect.
Collection
Bill Hammond Waiting for Buller. Bar
This work was displayed with this label to mark the artist's death in 2021:
All of us at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū were very saddened to hear of the death of Bill Hammond in late January, and our thoughts are with Bill’s family and friends. Bill’s contribution to the art of Aotearoa New Zealand was original and unforgettable, and he occupied a special, beloved place within the arts communities of Ōtautahi Christchurch and Whakaraupō Lyttelton.
Bill was raised in Christchurch and attended the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts in the late 1960s. In 1989, he joined a number of other New Zealand artists on an expedition to the sub-Antarctic and the Auckland Islands. This trip had a profound effect on the artist; it was from this point that his highly regarded bird paintings emerged in his practice.
Bill’s paintings are favourites for many of our visitors – works they return to over and over again. His wry sense of humour and generosity of spirit (once you got past that famous reserve) will be missed by many here at the Gallery. Recently, we had been working closely with Bill on a new publication focussed on his paintings from the past 15 years, which includes numerous tributes by artists to Bill and his work. Bill had that rare quality in an artist – someone who is highly regarded by his peers, and whose works appeal to people from all walks of life. We were honoured to have the opportunity to work with him this one last time.
Bill will be missed. We mark his passing with the deepest of respect.
Collection
Bill Hammond Shag Pile
Writing in 1770 from on board the ship Endeavour, anchored 400 metres off the Marlborough coast, botanist Joseph Banks described the dawn chorus of Aotearoa as a “melodious wild musick” that started an hour or two after midnight and lasted until sunrise. It’s an image far removed from this limp, silent assembly-line of shags, which have been killed, identified and readied for stuffing to satisfy the insatiable appetites of Victorian collectors a world away. Birds often stand in for nature in Bill Hammond’s paintings. Here, their piled-up bodies bear witness to the waves of extinction that have followed human occupation here over the last 650 years – and to our willingness to destroy what we most admire.
(Absence, May 2023)
Collection
Bill Hammond The Fall of Icarus (after Bruegel)
“It’s bird land. You feel like a time-traveller, as if you have just stumbled upon it – primeval forests, rātās like Walt Disney would make. It’s a beautiful place, but it’s also full of ghosts, shipwrecks, death…” —Bill Hammond Bill Hammond sailed to the remote Auckland Islands, south of Aotearoa New Zealand towards Antarctica, in 1989. Its landscape made a profound impression on him. Lined up on cliffs, staring out at the ocean, the birds of the Auckland Islands were unafraid of people, and Hammond imagined that Aotearoa looked very similar before human habitation. Different stories and timeframes and images collide in his canvasses as if in a dream, or as if fragments of consciousness were projected on to a screen. “I don’t have a tight brief”, he says. “I fumble around history, picking up bits and pieces.”
(Te Wheke, 2020)
Commentary
Doctor Jazz Stomp and the Webb Lane Sound
“Bill Hammond is long, lithe and tired, and was born several years ago. Is currently pursuing a Fine Arts course and trying hard to catch up. He is deeply interested in the aesthetic implications of sleep, sports the Rat-Chewed Look in coiffures for ’68, and dreams about blind mice in bikinis. He has never been known to sing outside the confines of his bedroom. Shows a marked but languid preference for the subtle textural nuances and dynamic shadings of washboard, cowbell, woodblocks, claves, cymbal, spoons, thimbles, tambourine, and the palms of the hands in percussive contact.”