John Weeks

Aotearoa New Zealand, b.1886, d.1965

Group Figure Study

  • c. 1945
  • Oil on canvas
  • Purchased with assistance from the Ballantyne Bequest and the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council, 1969
  • 527 x 600mm
  • 69/675

John Weeks was regarded as New Zealand's leading exponent of modern painting for a considerable period. A teacher at the Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland from 1930–54 he played an important role in connecting younger artists to the major developments in modern art of the early twentieth century. His reputation was enhanced by having studied and worked abroad for many years.

An ambulance medical corps officer in Britain and France during World War I, he studied art in Edinburgh from 1923, then in Paris at the studio of the cubist painter André Lhote from 1925, where he returned in 1928 after extended painting sojourns in Italy, North Africa and the South of France. (In Modern Times, 18 December 2015 – 11 September 2016)

Exhibition History