Gow Langsford Gallery - Spring Catalogue 2013

GOW LANGSFORD GALLERY SPRING CATALOGUE 2013

Detail from Damien Hirst Transformation, 2008, catalogue number 16

Katsuyo Aoki 8 Stephen Bambury 24 Don Binney 10 Tseng Kwong Chi 6 Tony Cragg 17 Tony Fomison 12 Dick Frizzell 15 Max Gimblett 3 Charles F. Goldie 28 Bill Hammond 25 Damien Hirst 16 Frances Mary Hodgkins 27 Ralph Hotere 22 Colin McCahon 19, 20, 21, 26 Judy Millar 5 Pablo Picasso 1, 2, 13, 14 John Pule 11 Thomas Ruff 18 Geoff Thornley 23 Gordon Walters 9 Andy Warhol 7 Mervyn Williams 4

SAF Works to be shown at Sydney Contemporary Art Fair

1

PABLO PICASSO

Chouetton, 1952 glazed and painted ceramic vase Height - 245mm Terre de fa誰ence vase, 1952, from the edition of 500, inscribed Edition Picasso, glazed and painted brown and black, with the Madoura stamp Provenance: Private collection, London

(1881-1973, Spain/France)

In 1946, Pablo Picasso visited the Madoura Pottery Workshop in Vallauris on the French Rivera where he became interested in the possibilities of ceramics and earthenware.

Following some initial experiments, Picasso was inspired by the results of his new-found medium and began what would become a long relationship with the pottery studio, frequently visiting and producing pieces until the end of his life in 1973.

Ceramics enabled Picasso to experiment with the nuances between decoration and form in ways inaccessible through other media. His forms ranged from more sculptural pieces to vases, plates and plaques, and his subjects reflected those in his paintings and drawings portraits, nature and animals. His pet owl and goat were also favourite motifs in his oeuvre at this time, as well as bull-fighting scenes.

2

PABLO PICASSO

Visage au Masque, 1963 silver plate, edition 10/20 sterling silver, 1390 grams 310 mm diameter Illustrated: Les Cyprès (ed.), Bijoux

d’Artistes: Artist’s Jewels, France, 2001, p168 Provenance: Private collection, France SAF

(1881-1973, Spain/France)

The production of objets d’art is an intriguing facet of Picasso’s extraordinary career. Extending from ceramics into precious metals, Picasso commissioned revered French goldsmith, François Hugo, to produce a series of silver and gold plates and medallions throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Each work was intimately designed and decorated

by Picasso, who, at times, continued to work on the plates after the process with Hugo was complete. Initially, these works were made for Picasso to keep himself, but in 1967 he authorized Hugo to make a limited edition of each for sale. Visage au Masque is one of only 19 different plates formed in sterling silver, each an edition of 20.

A complete set of 19 silver plates was sold at Sotheby’s, London on the 20th June 2013 (Lot 326) for USD$2,039,315, giving each plate the average price of USD$107,323.

This beautiful limited edition plate comes stored in a custom-made velvet-lined wooden box and includes a certificate of authenticity signed by Pierre Hugo.

3

MAX GIMBLETT (b.1935, NZ/USA)

Undertow, 2003 gesso, polyurethane, acrylic and vinyl polymers on wood panel 50 inch quatrefoil Provenance: Private collection, Auckland

Undertow is rich in meaning and influences. Gimblett’s philosophies and practices draw on a collection of artistic movements such as Abstract Expressionism and Modernism, as well as an assortment of spiritual beliefs that are influenced by Jungian psychology and Buddhism. While planning and contemplation are involved before and after the work’s execution, Gimblett’s unique method of painting occurs quickly and spontaneously, reflecting his intuitive inner-self. It’s as if an innately passionate force is residing in the artist, driving and guiding his brushstrokes. Undertow carries an element of performance making it something not just to be seen but to be experienced.

The work embodies a gestural sense of movement that remains equally delicate and complex – the black paint dances lightly and freely across the canvas in a state of grace and elegance. Gimblett conjures a sense of impulse that is as physical as it is spiritual, which ultimately culminates in a piece that transmits to its viewers an everlasting sensation of mystery, hope, and enlightenment.

4

MERVYN WILLIAMS (b.1940, NZ)

Red Wing, 1983 acrylic on canvas 650 x 571mm Provenance: Private collection, Auckland

An award winning and established artist within the New Zealand art scene, Mervyn Williams is best known for his work involving visual perception and the nature of reality. In the 1980s Williams’ interest lay with the exploration of the painted surface and the use of texture and colour to create illusion.

Works such as Red Wing have a heavily textured surface created with an unspecified medium that is manipulated into a formal composition. The entire surface is then painted with one colour and, once dry, Williams spray-paints a second colour across the surface from a very low angle. This second colour is captured by the textured surface of the painting and emphasizes the works’ composition. The effect is both vibrant and unsettling as the colours react with one another to create a shimmering pulsating illusion. These works are almost kinetic in their sense of movement and Williams’ choice of colour heightens this effect.

5

JUDY MILLAR

Untitled, 2004 oil and acrylic on aluminium 570 x 760 mm Provenance: Collection of the artist

(b.1957, NZ)

Judy Millar’s gestures have a striking confidence combined with a desire to experiment. She at once embraces and questions the history of art with self-conscious gestures.

While Abstract Expressionism held expressive honesty as a central part of its discourse, Millar both draws upon and turns this idea inside out, creating marks that appear more graphic than personal. This is taken further in her later work, where the mechanical silkscreen process is used to expand and print personal gestures. Untitled, also has a light, playful openness, in contrast to Abstract Expressionists’ often dense, tactile surfaces.

The viewer plays an important role in Millar’s work.

She remarks, “I like it when the painting is just on the verge of resolution so it involves and implicates the viewer, forces the viewer to make the completion” (Millar, in an interview with Robert Leonard, I will, should, can, must, may, would like to express, 2005). In this work, we are implicated through a suggestive, transparent layer, while in later works the viewer is physically implicated through the size and physicality of Millar’s installations.

Judy Millar has an ever expanding international presence. Working between Anawhata and Berlin, Millar represented New Zealand at the 2009 Venice Biennale with her solo exhibition Giraffe-Bottle-Gun. At the following Venice Biennale, Millar was selected to exhibit in Personal Structures: Time, Space, Existence alongside American Minimalist Carl Andre and ‘mother of performance art’, Marina Abromavic. Millar exhibits internationally on a regular basis, most recently creating a trio of large installations at the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane.

6

TSENG KWONG CHI

Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol Collaboration (standing), 1985 colour C-print on aluminium edition 1 of 3 1800 x 1800 mm Provenance: Eric Firestone Gallery, New York

(1950-1990, HONG KONG)

Tseng Kwong Chi was a prominent photographer and performance artist at the pinnacle of his career in the 1980s and 90s. Tseng studied art in Paris and, on arriving in New York in the late ‘70s, became a regular feature in the East Village art and club scene, forming friendships with many artists, including Keith Haring, Any Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Tseng is most well-known for his series of selfportraits titled Expeditionary Self-Portrait Series a.k.a. East Meets West. In this series Tseng poses in front of iconic architecture and sublime nature, investigating tourist photography in a playful juxtaposition of truth, fiction, and identity: “a cross between Ansel Adams and Cindy Sherman” (Artist biography, supplied by Firestone Gallery, 2013).

In Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol Collaboration (standing), Tseng documents Basquiat and Warhol in front of one of their many painting collaborations of the early to mid- 1980s. The pair began working together at the suggestion of Swiss dealer Bruno Bischofberger, beginning a collaboration that has been described by Ronny Cutrone as: ‘…some crazy-art world marriage and they were the odd couple. The relationship was symbiotic. JeanMichel thought he needed Andy’s fame, and Andy thought he needed Jean-Michel’s new blood. Jean-Michel gave Andy a rebellious image again’ (Victor Bockris, Warhol: The Biography, Da Capa Press: Cambridge, 2003, pp.461-2).

Both Warhol and Basquiat had become famous by constructing public personas for themselves that were contradictory to the truth. When Basquait first emerged out of the Graffiti Art movement his tag was SAMO, referring to Same Ol’, and he sold himself as a Caribbean-born ghetto kid who lived in boxes on the street. In reality he came from a middle class, well-educated family from Queens. The contradictions continue on canvas; as the pair collaborated, Warhol would often paint first, allowing Basquait to layer over his own work. ‘On many occasions Basquiat wrote a word then drew a line through it, simultaneously stating and contradicting the word’s meaning and associations’ (The Warhol http://edu.warhol.org/app_basquiat.html).

7

ANDY WARHOL

Campbell’s Soup Can II - Hot Dog Bean, 1969 #59 (A/P 5 of 250) from a portfolio of ten screen-prints on paper 889 x 584 mm signed Andy Warhol in ink verso, Christie’s and Martin Lawrence limited editions inc. labels affixed verso Printer: Salvatore Silkscreen Co. Inc, New York Publisher: Factory Additions, New York Provenance: Private collection Hong Kong, private collection Auckland

(1928-1987, USA)

32 Campbell’s Soup Cans lined the wall of Andy Warhol’s first one-man exhibition at the Ferus Gallery in L.A. in 1962.

Each identical except for their flavour, Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup cans immediately sparked both offense and sensation for their seemingly banal subject matter, verging on advertising. The soup can, an item with infinite reproducibility, is at the opposite end of what was traditionally thought of as fine art. The ‘lowly’ soup can, however, was an ideal vehicle for appropriation for Warhol. By relocating the Soup can from the supermarket shelf to the gallery space, Warhol was making a comment about factory driven mass-production and consumerism in contemporary society. Further, through appropriation and repetition, Warhol draws into question the notion that painting is a medium of originality and invention.

The Campbell’s Soup Can has now become one of the most iconic images of the 20th century, and is symbolic of Pop art. This particular soup can, Hot Dog Bean, is one of a series of 10 flavours that Warhol produced in 1969, including Chicken 'n Dumplings, Clam Chowder and Golden Mushroom.

8

KATSUYO AOKI

Predictive Dream XXXI , 2011 cast porcelain with white glaze 191 x 165 x 216 mm Provenance: Private collection, Auckland

(b.1972, Japan)

Katsuyo Aoki’s Predictive Dream series of exquisitely-crafted porcelain skulls offers a complex expression of past and present. Predictive Dream XXXI evokes an ethereal tension between a fragile intricacy of detailed porcelain and the skull as powerful symbol of mortality. Aoki’s highly decorative style cites historical background, myth and allegory, combining opposing ideas of death and entropy with beauty and ornament.

Although her jewel-like porcelain presents as momentary and delicately ephemeral, ceramic technique in Japan bears witness to a tradition of over 10,000 years. The Azuchi Momoyama period (1568-1603) witnessed the introduction of porcelain, a remarkably dense ceramic made by firing combinations of clay and feldspar.

These paradoxical concepts of temporality and permanence reside simultaneously within the Predictive Dream series and act to highlight a meaningful sense of continuity between cultural history and contemporary existence.

Aoki notes, “Their existence in the present age makes us feel many things: adoration, some sort of romantic emotions, a sense of unfruitfulness and languor from their excessiveness and vulgarity. And on the other hand, they make us feel tranquillity and awe that can almost be described as religious, as well as an image as an object of worship. By citing such images, I feel I am able to express an – atmosphere – that is part of the complex world in this age” (Aoki, artist statement, undated, sourced from artist’s website).

9

GORDON WALTERS

Black and white with red triangle, 1972 acrylic on canvas 635 x 635mm Provenance: Private collection, Auckland SAF

(1919-1995, NZ)

Gordon Walters was a leading figure of Modernist abstraction in New Zealand. He was a pioneer, showing dedication to abstraction at a time when New Zealand artists were predominantly exploring issues of landscape. Walters held his first solo exhibition of abstraction at the New Vision Gallery, Auckland in 1966, despite, at that point, having already worked vigorously on his artwork for 17 years. In this sense, Walters emerged as an artist who was deeply in control of his medium and conceptual output.

Black and white with red triangle is an interplay of crisp, simple forms in the black, white and red commonly associated with Maori art. While referencing traditional Maori art forms, Walters’ precise lines extend into a conversation of machine-like production, relative to his modern cultural context. Formal relationships and our perception thereof drove his practice. He comments, “My work is an investigation of positive/negative relationships within a deliberately limited range of forms; the forms I use have no descriptive value in themselves and are used solely to demonstrate relations. I believe that dynamic relations are most clearly expressed by the repetition of a few simple elements” (Walters, as quoted by Dunn, The Enigma of Gordon Walters’ Art, Art NZ, No.9, Autumn 1978).

10 DON BINNEY Whatipu from Southhead, 2002 oil on canvas 560 x 1140mm Provenance: Private collection, Sydney

(1940-2012, NZ)

The curving hills and coastal landscape of Whatipu from Southhead are characteristic of Binney’s long concern with and commitment to the natural landscape and wildlife. With technical expertise, characteristic crisp lines and fresh colour palette, Binney draws us into the untouched landscape - beyond the rumble of cars and construction.

The raw landscape has a powerful force, as he describes so aptly:

“When you go into a major forest or walk along an undefiled stretch of coast you feel an accumulated force of experience - not just human experience. It's the sum total of the earth's gravity, the movement of wind, the cycle of seasons, the energy expenditure of millennia of plants, the life and death of ever so much wild-life. You feel it all around you, like wraiths, the whole miracle of what has been and what yet will be” (Binney, Interview with Patricia Sarr and Tom Turner for Artists and the Environment, Art NZ, 1977)

In Whatipu from Southhead there is no bird hovering above the landscape, as is so often seen in Binney’s works from the 1960s. This work shows a return to Binney’s work of the early 1970s, when the landscape became his dominant subject matter, and his works were increasingly influenced by environmental concerns.

11

JOHN PULE

Untitled, 1992 oil on unstretched canvas 2100 × 1700 mm Provenance: Private collection, Niue

(b.1962, NIUE)

Untitled, 1992, was painted during an extremely fruitful period for John Pule. It was at this time that Pule embarked on his first trip back to his place of birth, Niue, which impacted on him deeply. The traditional form of Niuean tapa, called hiapo, proved a fruitful format for expressing experience, cultural memory and mythology. Further, Pule considered its loose grid structure to be reflective of architectural plans, and was a way of combining the influence of his ancestry with the state housing of his youth in New Zealand.

In Untitled, the scale of the unstretched canvas relates directly to the human body. Its composition of rows and grids, abundant with signs and symbols, as well as its earthy browns and black, are reflective of traditional hiapo.

Images of mythological creatures line the sides of the work, while circular symbols are juxtaposed with small narratives, such as that of a bird-like creature towering above a body prostrate on the ground. Circles reflect navigational devices of the compass and star, yet they also stand for what Pule thinks of as “a kind of philosophy based on wholeness. The circle contains the balance and harmony of a person’s life, and if you do anything wrong then that circle’s going to bust” (Butler, as quoted by Gregory O’Brien, A Portrait of the Artist as Many People, Nicholas Thomas, Hauaga: The Art of John Pule, 2010, 18). A form of both documentation and communication, Untitled is a significant work that embodies the beginning of Pule’s mature phase of art.

12

TONY FOMISON (1939-1990, NZ)

Dreams Are All We Are Made Of, 1988-89 oil on hessian on board 915 x 1830mm Published: Supplementary Catalogue number 89, Fomison: What shall we tell them?, Ed. Ian Wedde, City Gallery, Wellington.

Provenance: Private collection, Auckland

Tony Fomison is one of New Zealand’s most recognized post-war painters. Like his paintings, Fomison is said to have had an intensity and presence that is somewhat difficult to define. His works reflect a lifetime of keen observation and documentation of his immediate environments, offering an often personal representation of the human condition and its inherent frailty.

While his canvases are frequently characterized as dark and brooding, Dreams Are All We Are Made Of has a lightness and uplifting quality. Two figures with face-like features, familiar to Fomison’s individual vision, lift their heads upwards and outwards. They reach towards light from above and the glimpse of others of their kind. With what appear to be closed eyes, the figures stretch out with longing, but also with tranquility. The blue of the ocean and overwhelming light of the background set an ambiguous, primitive backdrop, as much a dreamscape as part of this world.

This is one of two large scale paintings that were exhibited in Fomison’s last exhibition at Gow Langsford Gallery in Richmond Road, 1989. The other work, titled Question and Answer, The Tree of Life, 1989 is in the collection of Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, New Zealand.

13

PABLO PICASSO

Five Nude Prostitutes, 1971 etching on Rives paper From series 156 with the artist's stamped signature (as issued), numbered 14/50 (there were also 18 artist and printer's proofs), the full sheet with deckle edges on all sides.

P. 366 x 494 mm., S. 503 x 656 mm

(1881-1973, Spain/France)

In the last few years of his life Picasso worked tirelessly on both paintings and prints. Five Nude Prostitutes is an etching from this period, which takes Picasso’s career full circle as he returns to themes prevalent in his famous work Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907. Five nude women reflect the grouping of the five figures painted 64 years earlier. The figures vary in ethnicity: their faces still mask-like with two portrayed in profile. Line, however, has shifted stylistically, and takes a more fluid path, creating figures that are curvaceous rather than angular. A still life no longer inhabits the foreground; we are confronted, instead, by a graphic depiction of femininity. Gallwitz reiterates Picasso’s return to early concerns. He writes, ‘In 1970 Picasso gives us fresh proof that he is a traditionalist; what he paints today is just what he was painting seventy years ago – human beings and their relation to a reality for which his own life furnishes the paradigm’ (Gallwitz, Picasso at 90: The late work, 184).

Five Nude Prostitutes reflects a fascination with sexuality and voyeurism, which is tied to Picasso’s awareness of mortality. At this point in his career, Picasso’s answer to the approach of death is defiance through the production of art.

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907 oil on canvas 2439 x 2337 mm Museum of Modern Art. Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest, New York City © Pablo Picasso/Succession Picasso. Licensed by Viscopy, 2013.

14 PABLO PICASSO Peintre-buffon peignant sur son modèle, qui se peint les yeux, 1971 etching on Rives paper pl. 58 from 156 Series, ed. 21/50 245h x 180w mm

(1881-1973, Spain/France)

Peintre-buffon peignant sur son modèle, qui se peint les yeux resides in a theatrical realm, where the process of painting becomes the subject of painting, a reflection and confrontation of Picasso’s self and his art. The paintermodel theme is one that Picasso revisited many times throughout his career. Returning to it in his old age, Picasso continues to question his self-image and identity through a mixture of parody and paradox.

In Peintre-buffon, Picasso likens himself to the 18th century naturalist, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon. Buffon spent his life compiling a natural history of the world, eventually comprising 44 volumes that highly influenced the nature of biology, zoology and anatomy. Here, Picasso is examining the painter, as Buffon did the natural world, but with self-irony. His study is of a painter making a study; a woman painting herself, while herself, being painted. Paradox continues with Picasso’s model, who, free from shading, has a sense of weightlessness, counteracted by her enlarged size and shape. The exaggerated size of the painter’s hand gives us the impression of a close-up on the action of painting, while the eye of the young woman, also unusually large, sharpens an awareness of ourselves looking in on this theatrical scene.

15

DICK FRIZZELL (b.1943, NZ)

The Sailor Returns, 2007 oil on canvas 2445 x 2335mm Provenance: Private collection, Australia

The iconic ‘maverick of parody’, artist Dick Frizzell has enjoyed a long and varied career. He is an artist who plays by his own rules. Known primarily for his pop art style and graphic edge, Frizzell continues to break trends in works that frequently blur the boundaries between high and low art. There is an on-going sense of irony and humour within Frizzell’s oeuvre as depicted in this playful yet provocative work.

The Sailor Returns is a parody of Pablo Picasso’s

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907, which is often celebrated as the cornerstone of Modernism and the birth of Cubism. It depicts 5 women in Barcelona, and was a deliberate breaking away from the classical rendering of female nudes in high art. Frizzell’s work skilfully integrates properties of the Cubist aesthetic with his own language of object and colour, to construct a compelling composition celebrating the centenary of Les Demoiselles.

The earliest sketches of Picasso’s work feature two men inside the brothel: one a sailor and the other a medical student. Frizzell chooses to reintroduce the sailor to the work giving him and the 2 central nudes comic book facial features reminiscent of his comic book Cubism of the 1970s. A major point of difference in The Sailor Returns is the introduction of Polynesian overtones, with the lefthand figure dressed in a lava-lava and Picasso’s African and Iberian masks replaced with a Maori tiki and a distinctly Polynesian mask.

16 DAMIEN HIRST Transportation, 2008 Butterflies & household gloss on canvas 48 x 48 in (1219 x 1219 mm) Provenance: Collection of the artist Photographed by Prudence Cuming Associates © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, DACS 2013 SAF

(b.1965, UK)

A tour de force in contemporary art, Damien Hirst has produced some of the most shocking, extravagant and brilliant art of his generation. From animals suspended in formaldehyde (The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, 1991) to a dazzling diamond-encrusted skull (For the Love of God, 2007), there is no denying Hirst’s aptitude for outrage and celebrity.

Hirst’s Transportation calls to mind a kind of vibrant, ironic Rorschach test. Instead of the stereotypical ink-blotted butterfly however, we make out the symmetry of a multi-colour mosaic, laid out with exact precision. The butterfly we do see is in its very composition; a beautiful, fragile ballet of dismembered insects, made static by the inescapable painted canvas.

Transportation’s cacophonous volley of magnificent colour overwhelms those before it, and it is not until you ponder the very fabric of the image that a deeper reading ensues. Death is ever present, inevitable. The surface is a stark, yet intrinsically elegant memento mori, reminding us so. Despite this, an aura of quiet contemplation characterises the image, transporting viewers into an ethereal void populated by the satin wings of hundreds of static butterflies. The overall effect is one of a luminescent Renaissance stained-glass window, an object of beauty that transcends the death of the butterflies the work is created from.

17

TONY CRAGG

Chain of Events, 2007 bronze 2000 x 700 x 650mm weight: 350kgs Exhibited: 2011, Auckland: Tony Cragg, Gow Langsford Gallery Provenance: Collection of the artist SAF

(b.1949, UK)

Tony Cragg is one of Britain’s most acclaimed sculptors, working in a range of materials from the found industrial products of his early career, to the stone, bronze, stainless steel and wood used in more recent works. An interest in science, as well as experience working as a laboratory assistant early in his career, are influences both showcased in the experimentation and technical proficiency of this work, Chain of Events.

Due to its unique twisting and turning form, this bronze sculpture carries a certain elegance and an undoubtable sense of motion that seems to flow as naturally and spontaneously as the course of liquid magma running down the side of a volcano; once cool, it sets hard, becoming a force to be reckoned with. Chain of Events delicately embodies this contrasting notion of fluidity and solidity.

Once solid, however, this form is not simply an accidental abstract frozen in time. Closer inspection reveals an astonishing cluster of human profiles that appear and disappear as one moves around the piece.

On sculpture Cragg has said, “There is this idea that sculpture is static, maybe even dead, but I feel absolutely contrary to that” (Robert Ayers (May 10, 2007), THE AI INTERVIEW Tony Cragg, ARTINFO, web, retrieved 2008-04-24). Cragg therefore brings to his sculpture a sense of impulse and fleetingness, which reflects life’s unpredictable chains of events.

18 THOMAS RUFF STE 1.19 (02h 48m / -35°), 1992 Chromogenic colour print, mounted with Diasec Face, wooden frame 2600 x 1880 mm Edition 2 of 2 Signed, dated and numbered in pencil verso: Thomas Ruff, 2/2 1992 Exhibited: 2009, Auckland: Out of This World, St. Pauls St. Gallery, 2010, Auckland: Thomas

Ruff, Gow Langsford Gallery Illustrated: Thomas Ruff: Photography 1979 to the Present, Matthias Winzen (Edt.), Distributed Art Publishers, New York, 2001. p.194 SAF

(b.1958, GERMANY)

Motivated by a childhood interest in astrology, internationally renowned photographer Thomas Ruff produced a series of large scale nightscapes of which STE 1.19 (02h 48m / -35°), is one.

The series is one of the first in which Ruff used readymade images for his photographs and is based on negatives from the archives of the European Southern Observatory (ESO). During the 1970s the ESO undertook a massive project to map the night sky of the Southern hemisphere. The ensuing images depict the sky over the Chilean Andes and were captured with a then state of the art Schmidt telescope giving the images a clarity and definition well beyond what Ruff could hope to achieve with the equipment otherwise available to him.

STE 1.19 (02h 48m / -35°) has a painterly quality that belies its documentary source and shifts the image subtly into the realms of abstraction. The titles of these works correspond to the geographical coordinates of the source negatives adding to the tension between the image as a scientific document and an artist’s impression. The expansive character of the image adds a sublime quality and the mysterious nature of the work is confounded by the artist’s sole contribution to the composition – a single spot, or star. The viewer unable to detect the artist’s intervention becomes caught between fact and fiction, certainty and scepticism. With STE 1.19 (02h 48m / -35°) Ruff questions the camera’s ability to fully depict reality and by implication these works suggest that even the most advanced technology cannot aid us in fully comprehending the universe or humanity’s role within it.

Ruff’s work is held in the collections of many major museums worldwide including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne and Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent. Gow Langsford Gallery hosted his first solo show in New Zealand in 2010.

19, 20

COLIN McCAHON (1919-1987, NZ)

Caltex, 1965 synthetic polymer paint 247 x 398 mm Colin McCahon Trust record number: cm000395 Provenance: Paris family collection

Caltex, 1965 acrylic on paper 250 x 400mm Signed and dated Colin McCahon '65 (on mount, ballpoint pen, b.r.)

Colin McCahon Trust record number: cm001093 Provenance: Private collection, Auckland

These two works form part of a series of 8 drawings that Colin McCahon made as preparatory designs for an unrealized mural intended for the Caltex Oil Offices in Auckland.

McCahon considered painting to be a form of direct communication, which is evident here in his combination of form as visual language, and as direct, written language. At this stage in his career, posters and signage had proved to be highly influential forms for McCahon, making him a perfect candidate for the Caltex mural. By combining visual and verbal elements, McCahon had begun to ask the viewer to consider his works both in a literary sense and for their visual effectiveness, pushing the possibilities of the meaning of written words into the structure of the work.

Hamish Keith notes, ‘the written paintings are McCahon’s most complex and controversial works, and they provide an insight into his originality and his achievement as a painter’ (Colin McCahon: Artist, Gordon H. Brown, A. H. & A. W. REED LTD (1984), p. 131).

In Caltex, McCahon draws upon the Maori motif of the koru, which is simultaneously letter and arrow, grabbing and directing attention. This is thought to be the first time that McCahon utilized the koru in this way. While in some of his works McCahon’s use of text shouts loudly out to the viewer, such as in Tuhoe are the People (a poster for Urewera), 1975, the Caltex series refers back to the Cubistinspired forms of the Titirangi period and as a result these works have an elegance and refinement not often apparent in the pure writing paintings.

21

COLIN McCAHON

Noughts and crosses, series 1, no. 6, 1976 synthetic polymer paint on steinbach 1100 x 735 mm Signed and dated C. McC JAN 76 (brushpoint, b.l.); NOUGHTS & CROSSES / 6. (brushpoint, b.r.)

Colin McCahon Trust record number: cm001604 Exhibited: 1976 Auckland: Colin McCahon:

Paintings—Noughts and crosses, Rocks in the sky, On the road, Barry Lett Galleries, 23 August-3 September 1976, cat. no. 1 (as Noughts and Crosses (first set), with cm000014; cm000546; cm000020; cm001495; cm000396; and cm001439), $400 each.

Provenance: Private collection, Auckland

(1919-1987, NZ)

In a similar way to Colin McCahon’s Rocks in the Sky series, which was inspired by his grandson’s description of storm clouds over Muriwai beach, McCahon’s Noughts and crosses series of 1976 came into existence due to a seemingly insignificant event. As McCahon watched his daughter play repeated games of noughts and crosses with his young son, McCahon was inspired to draw references between the childhood game and the more universal game of life. ‘For in life, as in noughts and crosses, each individual must play within a given set of rules, the choices made and chances taken determining what follows thereafter’ (M. Bloem and M. Browne, Colin McCahon A Question of Faith, Nelson and Amsterdam, 2002, p. 226).

As well as referencing the scraps of paper his family members scratched their games on, the Noughts and crosses series also illustrates the multiple references of both motifs. The cross is most commonly linked with religious connotation but can also have the contradictory meanings of both affirming something (‘x’ marks the spot) and negating it, crossing it out. The noughts present the same opposites, while a circular symbol can reference unity and continuity it can also be a metaphor for hopelessness, ‘the noughts threaten the possibility of the abyss; a primordial void from which there is no hope of escape’ (M. Bloem and M Browne, Colin McCahon A Question of Faith, Nelson and Amsterdam, 2002, p. 226),

22 RALPH HOTERE (1931-2013, NZ) Long Ago, 1997 Lacquer on corrugated iron, cast pewter mountings Each panel 2000 (h) x 850 (w) mm Provenance: Private Collection, Auckland

Ralph Hotere is one of New Zealand’s most important artists. His reactions to social and environmental issues - both local and global - are evident in many of his works and his strong, uncompromising images convey powerful visual and emotional messages.

Hotere’s sensitivity to the surface on which he works is an integral part of his artistic approach and he uses a remarkably wide variety of grounds: from canvas, either traditionally stretched or loose, to fine lacquer surfaces on hardboard, to rugged roofing iron. Long Ago is constructed from two narrow panels of corrugated iron, which stand vertically together forming a square of lacquered black that surrounds a cut-out symbol of the cross. Delicate tendrils are cut from the iron reaching below and above the horizontal arm of the cross and furled metal, lacquered in red curl at either end. As with so many of his works, Hotere has created a masterpiece of fragility and beauty from raw, everyday material.

23 GEOFF THORNLEY (b.1942, NZ) Cipher, 1990 oil on canvas 1860 x 1870mm Provenance: Private Collection, Auckland

Geoff Thornley studied at Elam School of Fine Arts, graduating with Honours in Painting in 1965. He had his first one man show at Barry Lett Galleries before moving to London, and on his return began exhibiting at the Petar/James Gallery, selected by gallerist Petar Vuletic as part of a new stable of abstract artists. It was here Thornley first exhibited his Construction works, which in the various forms of Tondo, Alba, Dyad and Cipher were to dominate his practice over the next decade.

Together with his other Construction series’ the Cipher works employ a low relief, textured surface which adds substance to the seeming simplicity of their design.

This is illustrated in Cipher in the series of three black, grey and red strips at the left-hand end of the painting. Together they give the end of the work a sense of weight, a closing or end point. The repeated, raised swirls at the right-hand end create movement and a feeling of lightness and flight, the textured surface providing depth and dimension.

Thornley’s work is held in many public and private collections, including Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, the Chartwell Collection, the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Fletcher Trust Collection, Rutherford Trust Collection, Paris Family Collection and the Jennifer Gibbs Trust.

24 STEPHEN BAMBURY Four Truths (To El Lissitzky), 1989 mixed media on aluminium 1275 x 1200mm Provenance: Private Collection, Auckland

(b.1951, NZ)

Stephen Bambury’s work is immersed in the history of abstraction. His persistent explorations of colour, paint, and surface explore painting’s material, physical nature as an object. Bambury investigates the notion of painting as an ‘actualised object’, a term used by contemporary American artist Joseph Marioni, who writes, ‘The central issue of painting as an actualised object is not the colour of the object, but rather the function of an image whose objectiveness is colour’ (Joseph Marioni, Painting as an Actualised Object, 1979).

Bambury’s Four Truths (To El Lissitzky) is named for the Russian avant-garde artist who was known for his involvement in Suprematism. Lissitzky went on to develop a Suprematist style of his own in the creation of a series of abstract, geometric paintings he called Proun. (LissitzkyKuppers, Sophie (1980). El Lissitzky, life, letters, texts.

Thames and Hudson)

Four Truths (To El Lissitzky) illustrates a mirroring and reversal of form. Four rectangles - two grey, one black, and the other formed by “empty” space - are enclosed by a larger rectangle, representing Bambury’s four truths. Organic stains fall down the side of the work, undermining the purity of the forms through a material investigation of the properties of painting. It is ‘For good reason’, Allan Smith writes, that ‘Bambury’s art has often been understood as providing a modus vivendi between the orthodoxies of late modern formalism and the uncertainties, informalities and fluidities of the postmodern world’ (Allan Smith, Stephen Bambury’s biography, http://tworooms.co.nz/).

25 BILL HAMMOND Volcano Flag, 1994 acrylic on canvas 1570 x 1650mm Provenance: Private Collection, Lyttelton

(b.1947, NZ)

Belonging to the infamous Buller series, Bill Hammond’s Volcano Flag pays an ominous tribute to the notorious ‘bird stuffer’, whose work had a lasting effect on the artist.

During his trip to the sub-Antarctic Auckland Islands, Hammond came across a ‘birdland’ that was “a beautiful place, full of ghosts, shipwrecks, and death” (Gregory O’Brien, ‘Bill Hammond: Song and Picture Book’, Lands & Deeds: Profiles of Contemporary New Zealand Painters, Godwit Publishing, Auckland, 1996, p.58). Around the time of this trip, Hammond was to discover the work of Sir Walter Lawry Buller – a Victorian ornithologist who was responsible for the trading and killing of thousands of native New Zealand birds. Buller’s passion for collecting these birds is equalled

by Hammond’s disgust at the practice; it is the eerie and shadowy nature of Buller, along with the other-worldly idea of birdland, which was to become a predominant subject in much of the artist’s works from this time.

In Volcano Flag, Hammond conjures a sense of death by incorporating skulls into his humaniform creatures. His bird-like figures are strategically aligned in an objective order that implies their eventual march towards the volcano. They seem without identity or cause as they stand side by side before the volcano’s looming gloom.

Painted on a section of WW1 Army tent, Volcano Flag references the past, creating a hauntingly beautiful sense of paradise lost. In exposing Buller’s controversial ornithological activities, Hammond holds a mirror up to our post-colonial society, bringing light to such misdeeds that took place in, and shaped, New Zealand’s past.

26 COLIN McCAHON

Kauri, 1954 oil on canvas 690 x 530 mm Inscriptions: McCahon Feb. 54. (brushpoint, lower left) Exhibited: 1954 Auckland: Object and Image:

New Zealand Fellowship of Artists, Auckland City Art Gallery, 2?-26 September 1954. 2013 Auckland: Colin McCahon: The Titirangi Years,

1953-1959, Gow Langsford Gallery, Kitchener St. Provenance: Charles Brasch by descent, Private Collection, Auckland

(1919-1987, NZ)

Colin McCahon moved from Christchurch to Titirangi in 1953 and faced with a new environment he was inspired to paint the native New Zealand bush, the vast stands of kauri, surrounding his home. He lived in Titirangi until 1959 during which time he developed some of his most consequential works and concepts.

During this period McCahon was influenced by European art movements such as Cubism. He received lessons in Cubism on a trip to Australia in 1951 from the artist Mary Cockburn-Mercer (1883-1962) who had studied Cubism in Paris before WW1.

Featured in the Auckland Art Gallery’s 1954 exhibition Object & Image alongside works by artists such as Ross Fraser, Louise Henderson, Kase Jackson, Milan Mrkusich and John Weeks, Kauri 1954, one of McCahon’s earliest Titirangi kauri tree paintings, clearly references the early Cubist works by Picasso and Braque, as evidenced by the restricted palette of earthy colours.

McCahon uses the geometric forms associated with Cubism to convey the sense of the trees and foliage that surrounded him in Titirangi, without making the painting too realistic or representational. Although the work clearly resembles the Analytic Cubist paintings of Picasso and Braque, this painting is unique to McCahon’s Kauri series in its use of the text ‘I AM’.

In the same year as Kauri, 1954, McCahon also painted his first complete word painting “I AM” (Collection: Hocken Library, Dunedin). What is most fascinating about Kauri is the way in which McCahon has used the abstract composition derived from nature to subtly reveal these most significant words. The words I AM were to become a major part of McCahon’s paintings culminating in the largescale work Victory over Death 1970. (Collection: National Gallery of Australia)

27 FRANCES MARY HODGKINS Tithe Barn, Cerne Abbas, 1943 gouache (a mixture of watercolour pigments and kaolin clay) and pencil on paper 19 inches x 27.5 inches Inscribed lower right: ‘Frances Hodgkins 1943’ Provenance: Given by the Hodgkins family to Dorothy Selby, after the artist’s death, by descent to Dorothy’s son-in-law, sold Bonhams, Nov 2013, Lot 83

(1869-1947, NZ)

Frances Hodgkins spent most of her working life in the UK where she came to be regarded as one of the key figures in British Modernism.

Relatively late in Hodgkins’ working life she spent time in Cerne Abbas, and it was here that she painted some of the masterworks of her long career. In January 1944 she wrote to her dealer Duncan MacDonald; ‘I have a horrid fear that my powers are growing dim. So make the most of what I send you….2 recently painted gouaches….I think you will like them……The Cerne Abbas gouaches’ (Wallace, Richard. ‘Mill Lane, Cerne Abbas. 1943’ essay, p1).

The two gouaches Hodgkins’ wrote of above were joined by a third and represent three of the finest works of her career; Abandoned Cottage, Tithe Barn and No. 2 Mill Lane. While there is little evidence Hodgkins had any great affinity with pagan beliefs and superstitions, these three masterworks embody raw, natural and mystical power. Of the three, Tithe Barn stands alone in its enhanced liveliness as well as its use of light and colour. The whole work shimmers and pulses in a whited-blue light; it is otherworldly.

28 CHARLES F. GOLDIE As Rembrandt Would Have Painted the Maori, 1933 Hera Puna, Nga - ti Whanaunga oil on canvas laid onto board 355 x 305 mm / 675 x 615 mm framed signed and dated with brush point top left, C.F. Goldie 1933; John Leech Gallery, Auckland, label affixed verso (faded). Original frame Published: NZ Herald (6 December 1969); NZ Herald (13 December 1969) p.3; Evening Post, (24 July 1974) p.1 (reproduced in black and white); Dominion (2 August 1974) p.1; Evening Post (2 August 1974), p.12; Glen, J. & Taylor, A., (1977) C.F. Goldie: His Life and Paintings, Martinborough, p. 266 Provenance: Purchased John Leech Gallery, Auckland, 5 August 1947, £157.10s, Cordy’s auction, Auckland, 12 December 1969, $3650, Dunbar Sloane auction, Wellington, 1 August 1974, $8,750; Webb’s auction, 20th September 1984; GOLDIE, Auckland Art Gallery Exhibition, 1997 (catalogue number 132); Private Collection, Auckland

(1870-1947, NZ)

Charles F. Goldie is undoubtedly one of New Zealand’s most famous artists. This painting titled As Rembrandt Would Have Painted the Maori is a portrait of Hera Puna of Ngati Whanaunga and the work is framed in Goldie’s original trademark dark stained kauri.

This work, as Goldie scholar Roger Blackley writes, ‘pays homage to the artistic hero of his [Goldie’s] youth, while directing our attention to a seemingly more expressive mode of painting. It is one of the earliest works created when, after more than a decade of ill health and artistic inactivity, the artist was persuaded by GovernorGeneral Lord Bledisloe to return to painting’ (Blackley, As Rembrandt Would Have Painted the Maori, catalogue of the exhibition with the same title, Gow Langsford Gallery, 2013). In this work, Goldie employed a considerably warmer palette than in earlier years, utilizing sketches and photographs of Hera Puna taken in Goldie’s youth. Because his source was no longer a human model, As Rembrandt Would Have Painted the Maori portrays Goldie’s skill at improvisation, adjusting and adapting earlier sources to form a new and compelling portrait.

GOW LANGSFORD GALLERY

NOW REPRESENTING

HYE RIM LEE

LAURENCE ABERHART

TAITTINGER COLLECTION

Taittinger Brut Millésimé 2002

Champagne Taittinger only produces a vintage dated champagne when the harvest is of exceptional quality. The wine is not released until it has had several years of ageing in the cellars and the fine, characteristic bubbles have developed.

Taittinger Brut Millésimé 2002, is a blend of 50% Chardonnay and 50% Pinot Noir from Grand Cru vineyards.

(Amadou Sow)

The brainchild of Claude Taittinger, a longstanding patron of the arts, the Taittinger Collection began in 1983 with the work of Hungarian artist Victor Vasarely. Claude perceived a natural alliance between the creation of the artist and the art of the great winemaker. The concept proved so popular that Champagne Taittinger have continued to handpick artists to commemorate their special vintages.

Featuring artists from around the world including French surrealist Andre Masson, Japanese painter Toshimitsu Imai and American pop artist Roy Lichtenstein the most recent image is by Senegalese artist Amadou Sow. Settled in Vienna since 1972, where he attended the prestigious, 300-year old Academy of Fine Arts, Sow began his artistic career with rock sculptures. Today he regularly exhibits his work around the world. This piece, created for the latest 2002 vintage, is inspired by the star studded African skies and the cosmos beyond.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Spring Catalogue 2013 at Gow Langsford Gallery, Kitchener St, July 2013 Front and back cover image: Max Gimblett, Undertow, 2003, gesso, polyurethane, acrylic and vinyl polymers on wood panel, 50 inch quatrefoil Photography: Tobias Kraus Photography www.tobiaskraus.com unless supplied Publication coordinators: Amie Hammond and Hannah Valentine Design: Hannah Valentine Text: Ilaria Biuso, Sasha Donnell, Ben Doyle, Amie Hammond, Anna Jackson, Sarah Moloney, Hannah Valentine. Š 2013 All text and images copyright the artist and authors and Gow Langsford Gallery ISBN: 978-0-9864630-5-1

GOW LANGSFORD GALLERY 26 LORNE ST / CNR KITCHENER ST & WELLESLEY ST AUCKLAND NZ PO BOX 5461 T: +64 9 303 4290 WWW.GOWLANGSFORDGALLERY.CO.NZ