Raymond McIntyre

This painting, possibly titled The Poplar, Autumn, highlights just how progressive Raymond McIntyre’s painting had become within the conservative art world of Ōtautahi Christchurch by 1907. Although small in scale, the work is full of unrestrained energy as McIntyre experiments with thick impasto paint loosely applied with a palette knife. Exaggerated poplar trees disrupt the view, extending beyond the frame against a languid pale blue and purple sky. Unconventional paintings such as this challenged many in Christchurch, with one local reviewer dismissing McIntyre as a mere “decorator”, while another described his painting as an “abomination” and felt unable to “praise a picture that is so unlike anything in nature we have ever seen”.

By 1908 it was clearly time for McIntyre to travel abroad and experience first-hand contemporary art in a more progressive city, and in January 1909 he set sail for London, never to return to Aotearoa New Zealand. A few months later he wrote in a letter to his father: “In London one can see every conceivable style of work.”

(Raymond McIntyre: A Modernist View, 25 October 2025 – 8 March 2026)