Dear Colin, Dear Ron

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Dear Colin, Dear Ron

By Peter Simpson

Te Papa Press

RRP $65.00

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

“I feel very strongly that where I’m going is where paintings must go.”

So wrote Colin McCahon in his  final letter to his friend Ron O’Reilly. The two of them had been writing to each other for thirty-seven years and in many ways their letters chart the history of McCahon to the point that he was justified in making such as statement.

This statement and other observations about his own art and the development of art in New Zealand over four decades are revealed in new book “Dear Colin, Dear Ron” by Peter Simpson. It adds new dimensions to our knowledge of the life of Colin McCahon as well as exploring the art scene of the 1940’ through to the 1980’s.

Simpson has brought together the correspondence of Colin McCahon and O’Reilly who first met in 1938, in Dunedin when McCahon was 19 and O’Reilly 24. They remained close, writing regularly to each other until 1981, when McCahon became too unwell to write.

Their 380 letters, more than 165,000 words covers McCahon’s art practice, the contemporary art scene, ideas, philosophy and the spiritual life. Their letters deal with a wide range of interests and reveal two men deeply committed to the notion that art can make  a difference to society ..

O’Reilly was a philosophy graduate who for many years worked for the Canterbury Public Library where he was influential in showing and collecting the work of McCahon. He subsequently became the director of the Govett Brewster Art Gallery.

This regard for each other can be seen when McCahon applied for job at Elam . O’Reilly wrote: ‘After years of viewing, as I know from the works of his that I possess, one is still discovering more in them, is still more and more impressed by the acuteness of the perception, the fineness of the thought and the breadth of the compassion revealed in their artistry. There is no other artist in New Zealand of whom I would say this. It should be clear that I regard Mr McCahon as the foremost painter in New Zealand and a very great man.’

Reilly’s respect for McCahon can be seen throughout the letters along with his intense interest in getting the rest of New Zealand to see the value of the artist’s work and he worked tirelessly to organise exhibitions of the artist’s work.  

Their friendship and correspondence brought out the best in each other – intelligence, empathy, compassion, loyalty, trust: these qualities are obvious  through the letters as though the two men appreciated that the issues the y were addressing were important to themselves as well as for posterity.

The book is illustrated with 64 images of McCahon’s work along with some of the drawings which the artist included in some of his letters to illustrate idea about composition.

The letters reveal O’Reilly to be a more intellectual and focussed thinker with carefully considered pieces of writing  while McCahon’s responses  seems to be more urgent but there are many passages of serious reflection.

The book is sprinkled with snippets of information about other artists, exhibitions and the art world  generally   which provides a sense of the emerging art scene.

There is Ron O’Reilly’s reports on talks by the visiting British critic Herbert read in 1963  and the American critic  Clement Greenberg in 1968 where the notions of international versus the local and the local were addressed.

There is also references to the arts politics of various arts institutions, art events and artists. In a couple of letters Ron O’Reilly (at the time the director of the Govett Brewster Art Gallery) writes about Billy Apple who was going to have a show at the gallery. He notes that ”Billy is a good man and a serious and dedicated artist. He is also touchy and won’t play when people want to use him or assume ever so bigheartedly that he is an entertainer cum pervert or treat him as a bum”.

The letters are full of such perceptive observations about artists and institutions. They also provide a fascinating insight into a relationship which is both personal as well as verging on the philosophical and spiritual as they both try to understand  their own and each other’s motivations and ideas.

Simpson says there are many interesting comments  about the nature of the paintings in the letters. In 1950 “Colin spoke of making changes to Easter Morning, a painting Ron especially liked. Ron wrote: ‘I am sorry you felt the Easter Morning needed altering: no doubt there are things one is trying for which are not achieved to satisfaction: however I wonder if one ever does achieve them by long labour on the same work. That picture had a magnificent feeling: the quiet movement of the women, the expectancy the fulfilment, the lovely early morning light . . . What you do is so good, so good, it doesn’t seem to me to matter much if you leave a painting which is not quite what you want: the development goes on so richly’. Colin replied: ‘About repainting, I don’t know, but I think Picasso is right that nothing is lost the destroyed discovery reappears in a new and better form. The Easter Morning is certainly better. The three women [in The Marys at the Tomb] remain – the alterations are to the angel[;] he has been enlarged & the landscape, lowered & the colour gone from blue to red[;] there is now a warmth as well as early morning coolness & a less cramped appearance to the whole picture.’

McCahon makes many comments about his own work. At one point in 1958  when he was working on the panels for “The Wake” which was based on the  John Caselberg poem he write to O Reilly saying

“I don’t understand the poem with any thoroughness at all either before I started work on it or when I finished. The feelings of what was being expressed comes over strongly – all builds into one feeling & builds this very largely by piling up of word on word in just such a relentless fashion”. Then in reference to the opening line of the poem,

“Your going maims God: God”

He writes “It is a line where bitterness is so strong that all the other feelings seem cancelled  & is I feel foreign to the quality of a wake.”

But just a few lines later he writes “I think I’m wrong in what I say of the first line. I can’t work out what I do feel about it…No doubt this bitterness is right as a start.”

The book is  a masterpiece of academic scholarship and shows a daunting level of  hard work with Simpson transcribing the letters as well as researching and writing 1500 explanatory notes to make the contents of the letters fully accessible to contemporary readers.

O’Reilly’s son Matthew O’Reilly and McCahon’s grandson Finn McCahon-Jones contribute insightful essays that round out the unique perspective the letters afford.