Douglas MacDiarmid
Aotearoa New Zealand, b.1922, d.2020
Hills from Annat
- 1946
- Oil on canvas board
- N. Barrett bequest collection, purchased 2010
- 260 x 336mm
- 2010/034
- View on google maps
Tags: clouds, farms, landscapes (representations), natural landscapes, trees
After a stint at the Wigram Air Force Base in Christchurch with the Royal New Zealand Air Force during World War II, Douglas MacDiarmid found the need to get away to the country for a well-earned sketching holiday. It was here that Hills from Annat was completed. He said of this time:
'I had been able to lay my hands on the last covered wagon in the South Island, also to hire a fine white mare. Off we drove in a flourish then for a month, Blanche, Buddy, me. We were headed for the rolling country where the Canterbury Plains are not yet hills finishing as Alps. At no more than a clip-clop pace it is possible to approach with peaceful observation, meditation merging as no motor vehicle will allow.'
In the vast emptiness, 8 January - 21 August 2016
Exhibition History
Related reading: In the Vast Emptiness
film
Douglas MacDiarmid - Hills from Annat
Douglas MacDiarmid reads his own verse. This love poem is dated 19 January 1946 and was written while travelling through Canterbury by horse and cart.
1946
The Group Show catalogue 1946.
The original of this document is in the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington (Alexander Turnbull, Rare Books & Fine Printing; Call number qRPrNZ EPHEM Caxton 4) and is reproduced here with permission.
Notes
Meeting Douglas MacDiarmid
When I visited Paris after the Biennale, I enjoyed a memorable evening with New Zealand painter and long-time Paris resident, Douglas MacDiarmid. The Gallery bought a small work of his from the estate of Albion Wright about a year ago for the Norman Barrett bequest collection. They all knew each other, so it was apt.
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
Heart in the high country: Austen Deans (1915 - 2011)
For Austen Deans, OBE, painting was an expression of his love of the outdoors and, in particular, the Canterbury high country.
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.