Colin McCahon
Aotearoa New Zealand, b.1919, d.1987
Canterbury Plains
- 1950-1951
- Oil on canvas
- Gifted by the family of Mary and Arthur Prior, 2017
- Reproduced courtesy of Colin McCahon Research and Publication Trust
- 1020 x 968mm
- 2017/082
Location: Arcade
Tags: Cubist, green (color), landscapes (representations), natural landscapes
During his time living in Ōtautahi Christchurch in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Colin McCahon completed several paintings of the hills and plains of the Waitaha Canterbury region. The geometric patterns of the paddocks and shelter belts in this work hint at McCahon’s growing interest in abstraction, which would become a major focus in his work. This painting is thought to have been inspired by Te Whakatakanga-o-te-ngārehu-o-te-ahi-a-Tamatea, the city’s Port Hills, not far from where the McCahon family lived in the suburb of Waltham.
He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil (from August 2024)
Exhibition History
Colin McCahon lived and painted in Christchurch between 1948 and 1953. During this time he completed several paintings based on the hills and plain of the Canterbury region. His painting became progressively more abstracted during 1952 and 1953. This painting is thought to have been inspired by Christchurch’s Port Hills, which were in close proximity to the McCahon family home at Barbour Street in Waltham. Arthur Prior was a lecturer and later a professor at the University of Canterbury and acquired this work from McCahon around the time it was painted. It has recently returned to Christchurch having been presented to the Gallery by the family of Arthur and his wife Mary.
(March 2018)
Related
Commentary
What We Talk About With McCahon
Where to begin when writing or talking about Colin McCahon? I remember seeing one of his paintings for the first time, a North Otago landscape painted deep green with a sunless white sky on a piece of hardboard, hanging at the Forrester Gallery in Ōamaru while on a family trip when I was a young teenager. I felt like I recognised the landscape depicted from what I saw around me growing up, but I hadn’t seen it reduced to something so stark and primal before.