Blog Archives

Colonial orientalism, Paula Morris

Galleries of Maoriland: Artists, Collectors and the Māori World, 1880–1910  Roger Blackley Auckland University Press, $75.00, ISBN 9781869409357 The cover image of Roger Blackley’s impressive new book is a famous one: a tea break in Charles Goldie’s frame-stacked studio in…
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Posted in Art, History, Non-fiction, Review

A most “vigorous afterlife”, Roger Blackley

Gottfried Lindauer’s New Zealand: The  Māori Portraits Ngahiraka Mason and Zara Stanhope (eds) Auckland University Press and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, $75.00, ISBN 9781869408565 This extremely elegant book, with its unusual, tall-and-thin “hyper-portrait” format, brings the artist Gottfried…
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Posted in Art, Māori, Non-fiction, Review

The Veblen effect, Roger Blackley

Behind the Canvas: An Insider’s Guide to the New Zealand Art Market Warwick Henderson New Holland, $45.00, ISBN 9781869663674 In a recent New Zealand Listener, cultural curmudgeon Hamish Keith commented on the dangers of the art market: “Buying and selling…
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Posted in Art, Non-fiction, Review

Sourcing the golden goose, Hugh Roberts

Elements of Modernism in Colin McCahon’s Early Work Gordon H Brown Art History Programme, Victoria University of Wellington, $15.00, ISBN 9780475122032 Toss Woollaston: Origins and Influence  Tony Green Art History Programme, Victoria University of Wellington, $15.00, ISBN 9771176304001 Colin McCahon…
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Posted in Art, Essays, Non-fiction, Review

The stories pictures tell, Roger Blackley

New Zealand Portraits Richard Wolfe Penguin Books, $80.00, ISBN 9780670071777 The Power of Portraiture: Representing Leadership in New Zealand from 1840 to the Present  Erin Griffey (with contributions from Brad Jackson and Paul Tapsell) Gus Fisher Gallery and David Ling,…
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Posted in Art, Non-fiction, Review

Cubist McCahon, Roger Blackley

Colin McCahon: The Titirangi Years, 1953-1959 Peter Simpson Auckland University Press, $49.95,  ISBN 9781869403898 A half-century ago, the literature of New Zealand art fitted on a single shelf, or – with a full collection of the periodical Art in New…
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Posted in Art, Biography, Non-fiction, Review

Where’s Colin? Roger Blackley

Landscape Paintings of New Zealand: A Journey from North to South Christopher Johnstone Godwit, $69.99, ISBN 186921247 Christopher Johnstone begins his survey of New Zealand landscape paintings in the 1860s, the period when an exhibiting culture emerged to support amateurs,…
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Posted in Art, Non-fiction, Review

Erratic humanity, Roger Blackley

Nerli: An Italian Painter in the South Pacific Michael Dunn Auckland University Press, $79.99, ISBN I869403355 According to the traditional mythology of New Zealand art, the annus mirabilis of 1890 heralds the arrival of professionalism and modernism in the figures…
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Posted in Art, Non-fiction, Pacific, Review

Paradise or purgatory, Alan Knowles

John Kinder’s New Zealand Ron Brownson (with contributions from Peter Shaw, Michael Dunn and Roger Blackley) Godwit and Auckland Art Gallery, $49.95, ISBN 1869621077 John Kinder turned his back on taunts of religious inflexibility and charges of being a “stiff-necked”…
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Posted in Art, Non-fiction, Photography, Review

Cabinet of curiosities, Roger Blackley

Icons Nga Taonga: From the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Te Papa curatorial team Te Papa Press, $79.99, ISBN 090901096X On a recent visit from his Tasmanian hideaway, art museum guru Daniel Thomas expressed amazement that Te Papa’s…
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Posted in Art, History, Non-fiction, Review
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