Imants Tillers

This painting was displayed with this label to mark the death of the artist in March 2024.

The team here at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū was saddened to hear of the recent death of local artist, writer and reviewer Pat Unger, and our thoughts go out to her family and friends. Pat was a passionate supporter of the Gallery, generously donating to our Foundation and heavily involved with the Friends of the Gallery during the 1980s. She was often to be found in our library, deep in her research and writing, where her friendly nature and sharp sense of humour were appreciated by those of us who regularly crossed her path.

Born in the Waikato, Pat moved to Ōtautahi Christchurch in 1967 with her husband, Ralf, where they raised their family. She took up graphic design in her forties, studying at the Christchurch Polytechnic before going on to major in painting at the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts in the late 1970s under Don Peebles and Bill Sutton. Pat exhibited regularly in Christchurch during the 1980s and 1990s, including Passport Issue, a solo exhibition held at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery in 1996. Pat also worked as an art reviewer for The Press and was a regular contributor to Art New Zealand at this time. Pat is well remembered as an ardent supporter and champion of Canterbury artist Bill Sutton, for whom she wrote three books including his biography, Bill’s Story.

Rest in peace, Pat.

In April 1958 Colin McCahon travelled to the US, responding both to the expansiveness of the American landscape and to the modern American painting that he saw in museums. On his return, his works increased in scale while economising in gesture: the landscape elements of Tomorrow have been reduced to a horizon and lowering sky, with the land bisected by a grey river. He converted his Titirangi garage into a studio, and built an extra bedroom for his children underneath. The studio was gloomy – there was only one small side window for light when the garage door was closed – but it precipitated dozens of new works. Tomorrow was an unfortunate painting, said McCahon, ‘in that it wouldn’t go right, and I got madder and madder. I hurled a whole lovely quart tin of black Dulux at the board and reconstructed the painting out of the mess.’ The black paint (a commercial flooring paint, mixed with sand) dripped down the surface of the work and ran between wide cracks in the studio floorboards, ruining clothes and bed linen in his sons’ room below. He finally finished the painting in May 1959.

(March 2018)