Colin McCahon
Encyclopedia
Colin John McCahon was a prominent New Zealand artist. During his life he also worked in art galleries and as a university lecturer. Some of McCahon's best-known works are wall-sized paintings with a dark background, overlaid with religious texts in white and varying in size, for example, Tomorrow will be the same but not as this is, 1958/59. He was also an extensive landscape painter, inspired in part by the writings of New Zealand geologist Sir Charles A. Cotton
. With Toss Woollaston
he is credited with introducing modernism
to New Zealand art in the early twentieth century.
by his mother where he grew up attending the Maori Hill Primary School, Otago Boys High School and the Dunedin School of Art. He also spent a year in Oamaru
during his primary school years. While still at secondary school he saw an exhibition in Broadway, Dunedin, by Toss Woollaston
which was influential.
Woollaston had earlier studied at the Dunedin School of Art where he was influenced by R.N. (Bob) Field, a La Trobe Scheme teacher. (La Trobe Scheme.) Field had introduced a form of British Post Impressionism. From this and from a knowledge of German Expressionism
gained through Flora Scales, Woollaston had developed his own personalised form of Expressionism. McCahon responded to this and to the influence of Field when he enrolled at the school.
There he encountered and socialised with Rodney Kennedy, Doris Lusk, Anne Hamblett and Patrick Hayman
. McCahon, Lusk and Hamblett, and to a lesser extent Hayman, developed a manner similar to Woollaston's on account of which they were later hailed by J.D. Charlton Edgar as "the first cell of modern art in New Zealand". They were Modernists and more specifically Expressionists, and arguably the first New Zealand-born painters to constitute a school, certainly the first representing any kind of modernism
.
They were at times concerned with nationalism - establishing a painterly national identity - but not to the extent some later writers have supposed. McCahon and Woollaston were concerned with issues of Christianity and Pacifism which became acute during the second world war. The younger Dunedin painters, including McCahon, spent their summer vacations with Woollaston in Nelson
.
McCahon married Hamblett in St. Matthew's Church, Dunedin
in 1942. Exempted from military service on account of a medical condition, he and Hamblett struggled to make their living painting while starting a family in the middle and later 1940s. By 1948 they had relocated to Christchurch where McCahon became involved with "The Group". Later still the McCahons moved to Auckland.
In his early years McCahon often painted landscape, but in stark expressive ways and with more or less overt symbolism touching on religious matters. He regarded his Otago Peninsula painting, completed in 1949 and now in the Dunedin Public Library as an early realisation of a decades-long attempt to convey what he had felt was a vision inspired by the Otago landscape which he had experienced while on an outing in the family car when he was still a schoolboy. Later he had other inspirations and other concerns but he was recognised by his peers as exceptional from the time he was at art school.
was expanded, and he began experimenting with Cubism in his works. In 1953 he lived in Titirangi in Auckland
and was exposed to native New Zealand plants such as the kauri tree. This spawned a series of works like Kauri. The influence and experimentation of Cubism can be seen in works like this by overlapping facets of colour, (like Cézanne)and a flattened, broken picture plane. One must note, however, that McCahon does not use multiple viewpoints, and he chooses to retain his subject of the landscape, resulting in works that are not completely abstracted.
, Jackson Pollock
, Mark Rothko
, Piet Mondrian
and Willem de Kooning
. Upon reflection, McCahon said that Pollock's works, due mainly to their large scale, were "pictures to walk past". These were abstract expressionist artists, and their influences can be seen in McCahon's work The Northland Panels. This work consists of eight panels, monocoat on canvas
. The influence of these artists can be seen in:
ism through light (light and dark; good and bad). Another method is by placing a scene from a religious narrative in a New Zealand setting (for example Crucifixion according to Saint Mark), and bringing the Bible into the contemporary world.
, who had worked on its conservation prior to the theft.
During the Christmas holiday period of 2006 a set of Colin McCahon manuscripts were stolen from The University of Auckland
Library.
Charles Cotton (geologist)
Sir Charles Andrew Cotton KBE was a New Zealand geologist and geomorphologist. Cotton attended highschool in Christchurch at Christchurch Boys' High School, where he lost the sight in his left eye because of a schoolmate's prank. In 1908 Cotton graduated from the University of Otago with an MSc,...
. With Toss Woollaston
Toss Woollaston
Sir Mountford Tosswill "Toss" Woollaston was one of the most important New Zealand painters of the 20th century.Born in Toko, Taranaki on April 11, 1910, Woollaston studied art at the Canterbury School of Art in Christchurch...
he is credited with introducing modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
to New Zealand art in the early twentieth century.
Early life and development
When he was a few days old McCahon was taken to DunedinDunedin
Dunedin is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the principal city of the Otago Region. It is considered to be one of the four main urban centres of New Zealand for historic, cultural, and geographic reasons. Dunedin was the largest city by territorial land area until...
by his mother where he grew up attending the Maori Hill Primary School, Otago Boys High School and the Dunedin School of Art. He also spent a year in Oamaru
Oamaru
Oamaru , the largest town in North Otago, in the South Island of New Zealand, is the main town in the Waitaki District. It is 80 kilometres south of Timaru and 120 kilometres north of Dunedin, on the Pacific coast, and State Highway 1 and the railway Main South Line connects it to both...
during his primary school years. While still at secondary school he saw an exhibition in Broadway, Dunedin, by Toss Woollaston
Toss Woollaston
Sir Mountford Tosswill "Toss" Woollaston was one of the most important New Zealand painters of the 20th century.Born in Toko, Taranaki on April 11, 1910, Woollaston studied art at the Canterbury School of Art in Christchurch...
which was influential.
Woollaston had earlier studied at the Dunedin School of Art where he was influenced by R.N. (Bob) Field, a La Trobe Scheme teacher. (La Trobe Scheme.) Field had introduced a form of British Post Impressionism. From this and from a knowledge of German Expressionism
German Expressionism
German Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin, during the 1920s...
gained through Flora Scales, Woollaston had developed his own personalised form of Expressionism. McCahon responded to this and to the influence of Field when he enrolled at the school.
There he encountered and socialised with Rodney Kennedy, Doris Lusk, Anne Hamblett and Patrick Hayman
Patrick Hayman
Patrick Hayman was an English artist who worked in a variety of media including painting, drawing and three-dimensional constructions. Although he only lived in Cornwall, for a few years, he was closely associated with the St Ives School of painters and sculptors.Hayman acknowledged he was...
. McCahon, Lusk and Hamblett, and to a lesser extent Hayman, developed a manner similar to Woollaston's on account of which they were later hailed by J.D. Charlton Edgar as "the first cell of modern art in New Zealand". They were Modernists and more specifically Expressionists, and arguably the first New Zealand-born painters to constitute a school, certainly the first representing any kind of modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
.
They were at times concerned with nationalism - establishing a painterly national identity - but not to the extent some later writers have supposed. McCahon and Woollaston were concerned with issues of Christianity and Pacifism which became acute during the second world war. The younger Dunedin painters, including McCahon, spent their summer vacations with Woollaston in Nelson
Nelson, New Zealand
Nelson is a city on the eastern shores of Tasman Bay, and is the economic and cultural centre of the Nelson-Tasman region. Established in 1841, it is the second oldest settled city in New Zealand and the oldest in the South Island....
.
McCahon married Hamblett in St. Matthew's Church, Dunedin
St. Matthew's Church, Dunedin
St. Matthew's Church is an inner-city Anglican parish church, located on the City Rise in Dunedin, New Zealand. Designed by William Mason the foundation stone was laid on 11 July 1873 and the building was consecrated on 3 December 1874. It cost 4,874 pounds to construct which wasn't paid off until...
in 1942. Exempted from military service on account of a medical condition, he and Hamblett struggled to make their living painting while starting a family in the middle and later 1940s. By 1948 they had relocated to Christchurch where McCahon became involved with "The Group". Later still the McCahons moved to Auckland.
In his early years McCahon often painted landscape, but in stark expressive ways and with more or less overt symbolism touching on religious matters. He regarded his Otago Peninsula painting, completed in 1949 and now in the Dunedin Public Library as an early realisation of a decades-long attempt to convey what he had felt was a vision inspired by the Otago landscape which he had experienced while on an outing in the family car when he was still a schoolboy. Later he had other inspirations and other concerns but he was recognised by his peers as exceptional from the time he was at art school.
Styles
Colin McCahon is known for applying a wide range of stylistic and conceptual influences to his work.He use a lot of landscape styles. He liked to use black and white.Cubism
After working with Mary Cockburn-Mercer in Melbourne, his knowledge on CubismCubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
was expanded, and he began experimenting with Cubism in his works. In 1953 he lived in Titirangi in Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
and was exposed to native New Zealand plants such as the kauri tree. This spawned a series of works like Kauri. The influence and experimentation of Cubism can be seen in works like this by overlapping facets of colour, (like Cézanne)and a flattened, broken picture plane. One must note, however, that McCahon does not use multiple viewpoints, and he chooses to retain his subject of the landscape, resulting in works that are not completely abstracted.
Abstract Expressionism
After a visit to the United States of America in 1958, McCahon viewed paintings by Barnett NewmanBarnett Newman
Barnett Newman was an American artist. He is seen as one of the major figures in abstract expressionism and one of the foremost of the color field painters.-Early life:...
, Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
, Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
, Piet Mondrian
Piet Mondrian
Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian , was a Dutch painter.He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg. He evolved a non-representational form which he termed Neo-Plasticism...
and Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
. Upon reflection, McCahon said that Pollock's works, due mainly to their large scale, were "pictures to walk past". These were abstract expressionist artists, and their influences can be seen in McCahon's work The Northland Panels. This work consists of eight panels, monocoat on canvas
Canvas
Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...
. The influence of these artists can be seen in:
- Use of unframed canvas: "I think it gives them more freedom to act" - Colin McCahon
- Large scale
- The scale and loose nature of the panels create a new sense of time and space
- Use of text e.g. "A landscape with too few lovers" from poetry, the BibleBibleThe Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
, and a note from J.M.W. Turner. Use of text creates a sonic quality. - Colourfields show influence of Rothko, Newman and Mondrian.
Religion
McCahon shows religious undertones to his work by giving the landscape an essentially spiritual element. One method by which he does this is by stripping the landscape bare, showing influence of Cotton's book Geomorphology of New Zealand, especially in works such as Takaka: Night and Day. This work also shows religious undertones by the use of symbolSymbol
A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...
ism through light (light and dark; good and bad). Another method is by placing a scene from a religious narrative in a New Zealand setting (for example Crucifixion according to Saint Mark), and bringing the Bible into the contemporary world.
Works stolen
In June 1997 the Urewera Mural (a triptych) was stolen from the Department of Conservation Aniwaniwa Visitor Centre and 15 months later was returned. Following its return, the painting was conserved by staff of the Auckland Art GalleryAuckland Art Gallery
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki is the principal public gallery in Auckland, New Zealand and has the most extensive collection of national and international art in New Zealand...
, who had worked on its conservation prior to the theft.
During the Christmas holiday period of 2006 a set of Colin McCahon manuscripts were stolen from The University of Auckland
University of Auckland
The University of Auckland is a university located in Auckland, New Zealand. It is the largest university in the country and the highest ranked in the 2011 QS World University Rankings, having been ranked worldwide...
Library.
Select bibliography
- Marja Bloem and Martin Browne, Colin McCahon A Question Of Faith. Craig Potton Publishing/Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 2002
- Ivan BoothamIvan BoothamIvan Bootham is a New Zealand novelist, short story writer, poet and composer.- Life and literary works :Ivan Bootham was born in Farnworth, Lancashire, in 1939, and migrated to New Zealand as a teenager, working in a variety of jobs in provincial centres...
, "The Message As Art: An Exploratory Catechism of McCahon Word Painting" in Art Words Ho! 1989, pp. 22-34.
- Gordon H. Brown,Colin McCahon: Artist.Reed Books, rev. ed. 1993
- Gordon H. Brown, Towards A Promised Land: On the life and art of Colin McCahon. Auckland University Press, 2010
- Agnes Wood, Colin McCahon: The Man and the Artist. David Ling Publishing Ltd, 1997