Leo Bensemann On The Takaka Hill 1977. Oil on board. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased, 1983
Leo Bensemann Rain in the Paradise Garden, Takaka 1979. Oil on hardboard. Collection Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased with assistance from a group of Canterbury artists, 1991
Leo Bensemann Evening, Ligar Bay 1979. Oil on board. Collection of Burnside High School. Reproduced with permission
14 September 2024 – 9 February 2025
A collection of Leo Bensemann’s extraordinary Mohua Golden Bay landscape paintings.
Leo Bensemann felt a strong connection to Mohua at the top of Te Waipounamu the South Island throughout his life. Although he lived and worked for most of his life in Ōtautahi Christchurch he was born and raised in this idyllic landscape, and he was at his happiest painting, walking, swimming, reading and socialising at Mohua. Over the last two decades of his life he produced an extraordinary series of paintings based on the hills, beaches and intriguing karst rock formations that dominate the Bay. Exquisitely executed, these paintings are imbued with a sense of the region’s unique landscape and convey something of the profound impact it had on Bensemann in his later years. Paradise Garden focuses on this important body of work by one of Canterbury’s most talented painters.
-
Location:
Ravenscar Gallery -
Curator:
Peter Vangioni -
Exhibition number:
1171
Related
Exhibition
A Caxton Miscellany: The Caxton Press 1933-58
17 March 2013
Established in Christchurch in 1933 the Caxton Press became one of the most progressive publishers of contemporary New Zealand writing and dynamic modern typographical design.
Exhibition
Pressed Letters: Fine Printing in New Zealand Since 1975
11 October 2012
An exhibition presenting some of the finest examples of letterpress printing produced in New Zealand from 1975 to the present.
Exhibition
Leo Bensemann: A Fantastic Art Venture
22 February 2011
A comprehensive retrospective of the influential Canterbury artist and designer Leo Bensemann, who was at the centre of a dynamic revival in New Zealand art in the mid-twentieth century.
My Favourite
Leo Bensemann: Seascape with causeway
The four years I spent at Elam as an undergrad straight out of high school ruined art for me. I entered the building on Mount Street in love with painting and wanting to be a painter, and I left in love with nothing.
Article
Tomorrow, Book, Caxton Press, Landfall
In the decades before and after the Second World War, Christchurch experienced a remarkable artistic efflorescence that encompassed the visual arts, literature, music, theatre and the publishing of books and journals. And the phenomenon was noticed beyond these islands. For instance, in his 1955 autobiography, English publisher and editor of Penguin New Writing and London Magazine, John Lehmann, wrote (with a measure of exaggeration, perhaps) that of all the world’s cities only Christchurch at that time acted ‘as a focus of creative literature of more than local significance’.
Interview
Talking Bensemann
Leo Bensemann was one of the most respected figures in the Christchurch arts scene, and played a pivotal role in influential arts collective The Group. Always something of an odd-man-out, he produced a large body of work across several different disciplines before his death in 1986. In an attempt to get a fuller picture of the man himself, Gallery director Jenny Harper spoke to two artists who knew him well, John Coley and Quentin MacFarlane.
Artist Profile
Leo Bensemann: an art venture
Leo Bensemann (1912–1986) was a pivotal figure bridging the worlds of literature and visual arts – a go-between like no other. Peter Simpson is an authority on this distinctive artist.