Petrus van der Velden turned to painting full-time in 1867 after six years as a struggling self-employed lithographer. “The first year was the hardest, and at the end I had done a picture; the harbour and the ships”, he later recalled. Exhibited in Rotterdam and then the Antwerp Salon, it sold to “an English gentleman … for 300 guilders [£25]. Quite a fortune!”

(Out of Time, 23 September 2023 – 28 April 2024)

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)

The hot, dry nor'west winds of Canterbury produce dramatic cloud formations and an atmospheric light. Petrus van der Velden has captured these effects with what is probably Christchurch's River Avon in the foreground. He lived near the river between 1890 and 1893. The colonial woman bent over, occupied with her task of work, has echoes of his earlier Dutch paintings, which focused on Dutch peasants at work. Van der Velden painted in a realist manner, which was influenced by his association with the Dutch Hague School of painters who favoured dark sombre tones and a loose style of brushwork. The nor'west scene is created by using strong contrasts of light and shade (chiaroscuro). Born in Rotterdam, Van der Velden established himself as a painter, particularly of marine subjects, in Holland, from where he emigrated in 1890. However, he struggled to make a living in Christchurch and in 1898 went to Sydney. He returned to settle in Wellington in 1904 but died in Auckland.

“The greatest of all lessons is to learn to see. Many are ‘colour blind’ till they have their eyes opened to nature’s lessons, which she is always trying to teach us. But we must always tell what nature says to us, simply and directly without pretence or falsehood. Tell the Truth. Christ was the greatest artist. His words and pictures are a simple telling of nature's lessons – they are always the Truth. ‘We reason with colours. Colours are dead’, but by telling what nature teaches us the dead colours enable us to express the wonders and beauties of the Creator’s work.”

—Petrus van der Velden

(McCahon / Van der Velden, 18 December 2015 – 7 August 2016)

Research for the exhibition Closer (16 December 2017 – 19 August 2018) resulted in the restoration of this work's orginal title. In Dutch 'Begrafenis in den winter op het eiland Marken' and in English 'Burial in the winter on the island of Marken'.

Combining a wintry landscape with an equally bleak portrayal of loss, this painting has captivated many visitors since joining the Gallery’s collection in 1932. Small details, like snow-dusted shoes, noses red with cold, and a woman folded over by grief, are observed with such accuracy and tenderness by Petrus van der Velden that this funeral procession on an isolated Dutch island feels just as real as it looks. However, its most important figure – the reason for the gathering and for all the grief we see – remains unseen. The deceased, said to have been a drowned local fisherman, is present only in the dark shape of the coffin – and in the faces of those left behind.

(Absence, May 2023)

Colin McCahon produced his first lithograph in 1954, and in 1957 completed two suites of lithographs, including Van Gogh – poems by John Caselberg. He employed a commercial lithographer for these works with mixed results, likely due to the fact that he had little say in quality control with the printer. Nevertheless, it was ultimately a successful suite. Colin incorporated John Caselberg’s poem sequence, ‘Van Gogh’, into his drawings, writing the poem out across several sheets in his iconic handwriting, which he also usedin his paintings. Colin also worked with other print mediums, including a small potato print also in this exhibition, but it is his lithographs from the 1950s that were his most successful.

Ink on Paper: Aotearoa New Zealand Printmakers of the Modern Era, 11 February – 28 May 2023

Talking about his first visit to Ōtira in 1890, Rotterdam-born artist Petrus van der Velden later recalled, “For the first three days I did nothing at all but just looked, it took my breath away.” A highly skilled professional artist with substantial exhibiting experience in the Netherlands, van der Velden prioritised capturing or expressing emotion in his art over recording the physical features of the landscape. The awe-inspiring setting aided him in this pursuit – especially during stormy weather – and drew him back again and again.

He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil (from August 2024)