Category: Reviews, News and Commentary

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Reviews, News and Commentary

Groundwork: The Art and Writing of Emily Cumming Harris

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Groundwork: The Art and Writing of Emily Cumming Harris

By Michele Leggott and Catherine Field-Dodgson

Te Papa Press

RRP $60

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Botanical painters have been an integral part of the botanical and artistic history of New Zealand since Joseph Banks accompanied Cook on his voyage to New Zealand and his publication of detailed illustrations of the exotic plant species he found here.

Since the time of Banks there have been many other artists who have devoted themselves to depicting the flora of New Zealand .A new book “Groundwork” by Michele Leggott and Catherine Field-Dodgson reveals one of the first women botanical artists in New Zealand. Emily Cumming Harris who was born in England in 1837 spent most of her life in New Zealand, mainly in the Taranaki and Nelson areas.

During this time, she painted numerous examples of plant life as well as landscapes, a number of which were exhibited locally and internationally.

Her works were exhibited at the Sydney International Exhibition in 1879, the 1880–81 Melbourne International Exhibition and the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London in 1886. At the New Zealand Industrial Exhibition held in Wellington in 1885 she won first prize and a silver medal for a painted screen.

Emily Cumming Harris, Kiekie (Freycinetia banksii), nikau (Rhopalostylis sapida), five finger (Pseudopanax arboreum) and karaka (Corynocarpus laevigata) in fruit, 1879, watercolour, 389 x 506mm. Reproduced as a Turnbull Library print in 1980. Alexander Turnbull Library,

Throughout her life she also had solo exhibitions, selling a number of works, the sales of which provided useful financial assistance to her and her family.

The book documents her career as an artist and even though this was never to be a full-time career she amassed a large collection of images many of which are in public collections. Leggott and Catherine Field-Dodgson’s research, along with other individuals reveal a woman whose work lies between the scientific, botanical illustration and artistic.

The book has been the result of a lot of detective work, research in various museums and some family history. Michelle Leggott ‘s interest came about when she was researching about Emily’s father, Edwin who had painted several views of New Plymouth at the time of the Land Wars in Taranaki. His paintings are also included in the book.

Emily Cumming Harris, Hector’s tree daisy Brachyglottis hectorii, oil on straw board, 690 x 470mm. Galpin collection, Pauanui

The authors also discovered a number of paintings Emily had done of astronomical subjects – The Total Eclipse of the Sun in1885 and a double tailed comet in 1901.

The book includes a number of her poems which range in quality but the occasional one shows some literary skills and keen observation.

Her “The mountain looks down on the river” contains some lines which indicate an awareness of the situation of Māori.

But the forest which grew by the river,

And the flowers on the mountain that bloomed

Will they gladden our hearts for ever

Or pass like a race that is doomed?

In 1890, she published three books, New Zealand flowers, New Zealand ferns, and New Zealand berries. Each contained twelve lithographs with descriptive text, and some copies were hand-coloured by Harris herself.

Emily Cumming Harris, Celmisia chapmanii – Campbell Island; Celmisia vernicosa – Campbell Island, 1890s, watercolour, 310 x 440mm. Alexander Turnbull Library

All her paintings as well as her writings and poems provide a portrait of a woman of great talent and enterprise but social convention prevented her developing an independent career and she was viewed merely as a gifted illustrator.”

This has meant she has not been well served by history but this book will do much to correct that.

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Auckland Philharmonia’s Enigma

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Enigma

Auckland Philharmonia

Auckland Town Hall

March 27

Conductor Karl-Heinz Steffens

Grieg, Norwegian Dances
James MacMillan, Concerto for Orchestra ‘Ghosts’ (NZ premiere)
Elgar, Enigma Variations

On the programme for the Auckland Philharmonia’ s “Enigma” concert was a newly commissioned  work by the Scottish composer James MacMillan. His “Concerto for Orchestra” was subtitled “Ghosts” and had an enigmatic quality to it.

As the composer says of the work, “The music seems to be haunted by other, earlier musical spirits and memories,” These musical memories which creep into the composition can be seen in the reference to Beethoven’s “Ghost”  trio along with other musical references – Debussy, Scottish traditional music and an eastern musical hymn.

These musical references emerge from the composition like ghostly figures, sometimes gradually appearing, sometimes unexpectedly while some of the themes overlap.  The music is full of juxtapositions and surprises as various instruments and combinations of instruments introduce new themes and spiritedly amplify them.

The lively spirits of the opening were created by dramatic percussion and piercing brass which led to a great chattering of sounds with some eerie conversations between the strings and brass.

Throughout the work there is a sense of the instruments floating around, trying to discover and capture themes which have been lost. This floating, colliding and capturing of elusive themes creates a tension within the piece. The dramatic flourishes of percussion, the sinuous sounds of the strings as well as some jazzy sequences all add to the works restlessness and urgency.

The sounds all helped create a dreamscape of remembered, and reimagined sounds and like some ghostly figures were continually slipping and finally the wispy sounds disappear.

The piece recalls the Shakespeare line from the Tempest

The isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices

Many of the same musical ideas appear in Elgars “Enigma Variations” where various musical instruments are used to convey impression of people that were close to the composer. The one theme that is probably never heard is the one that represents the composer himself. The variations feature the composer’s own ideas about his friends and close contacts conveying their physical, psychological and spiritual personalities.

The variations with their delightful impressions include variation I said to be of his wife, has a wistful quality and  an anthem overflowing with joy but also with s hint of sadness, Variation IX Nimrod with its heavenly sounds and the violas solo in Variation VI – Ysobel

Conductor Karl-Heinz Steffens was able to ensure that each of the portraits was interpreted with the appropriate mood, pace and colour and he seemed to relish both the music and the narratives of the work and his sharp, sensitive gestures had him performing like some grand puppet master manipulating the  dozen characters of Elgar’s world.

The opening work on the programme was Grieg’s “Norwegian Dances” and Steffens was able to lead the orchestra through the spirited dances with its changing portraits of the people, the history  and landscape effortlessly, taking the orchestra from lethargic to happy and ebullient.

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Animal: The great little show in the farmyard

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Animal

Cirque Alfonse

Q Theatre

March 19 – 23

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

It was not much of an act, chucking an egg in the air, have it land on your back and keep it there while you jiggle around. Anyone could do it , except one of the performers in the Quebec based group “Animal” had to have three goes at it. One of the eggs splatting on his back and head and two more landing on the stage. He got more applause for the broken eggs than did his two fellow perfomers for their safely caught eggs.

It’s always great to see performers achieving pulling off acts , but it’s more amusing when they fail – fail, recover and get on with the show. It often reveals the skill and dexterity of the performer and shows up our own lack of skill. In another of their acts one of the females spins a bucket full of seeds which is supposed to keep the seeds inside  . She misjudges and we get a stage strewn with seeds and she doesn’t miss a beat – it almost seems as if she meant that to happen. I think the little children may have learned one of their basic science lessons about centripetal force.

Theres a lot of basic science in” Animal” along with basic acrobatics as the group perform basic balancing, juggling and springboard work. They take the audience on a slightly surreal  journey through their weird farm of outlandish animal  and wacky activities – tossing pitch forks, balancing on milk churns, riding bucking cows.

As well as being skilled acrobats and contortionists the group are also skilled musicians playing guitar, trumpets, a range of percussion instruments, flute and keyboard – and they can sing too, belting out their own French compositions which are probably very witty if you are up on your French.

The Canadian Cirque Du Soliel group has shown us  how to put on a high-powered performance with cool moves and dazzling costumes but “Animal” is more down to earth, using all the contraptions from the farm, – wheelbarrows. milk churns and  hay forks, along with a jumble of clothes and hats which they must have found around the barn. Their routines are all clever and entertaining, bringing together circus, song, dance and theatre with some  quirky live music.

It may be designed for children but it has a universal appeal  with their displays of strength  agility and balance in their boutique version of the grander Cirque displays.

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Party Time at the Town Hall with Neil Ieremia

Reviewed by Malcolm Calder

Neil Ieremia and the cast Image Jinki Cambronero

Not A Retrospective

Black Grace

By Neil Ieremia MNZM

Dir Neil Ieremia
With Che Fu, Tha Feelstyle, Buckwheat, the NZ Trio, DJ Manuel Bundy, multiple dancers and the Town Hall Staff

Great Hall,

Auckland Town Hall

Saturday, 20 March 2025

Reviewed by Malcolm Calder

There was actually a bit of dance at this Black Grace extravaganza. But there was an awful lot more as well.

Billed as a celebration – and rightly so – this was really a 30th birthday party for Neil Ieremia’s now iconic NZ company.  Yes, definitely a party and a great big thank you to Neil and his crew.  The Town Hall rocked to its foundations. 

Configured more as a rock venue-cum-nightclub, the setting featured a large catwalk (or perhaps showcase-platform-up-the-centre-of-the-floor might be a more apt description), some video-screens on stage towering over DJ Manuel Bundy, with gantries and creative lighting overhead and Anonymouz’s creative soundscape emanating artfully from every corner of the room.  The audience was split between those constantly moving excitedly on the floor around the catwalk and those seated upstairs – didn’t see too much jewellery being rattled though.

Auckland Town Hall catwalk Image Jinki Cambronero

Things started slowly (well relatively anyway) acknowledging some of the company’s early work, its strong links to Pasifika and its dance heritage.  But then hip hop artist Tha Feelstyle, and drag phenomenon Buckwheat arrived and things moved swiftly into the now and it was all on.  The entire venue became partly a concert venue, partly a nightclub and partly a showcase.  Even the NZ Trio, the mighty Town Hall organ and the staff became part of the show. 

It was therefore highly appropriate that Ieremia took the final bow himself, decked out in a rather splendid white frock-coat.

Auckland was treated to a contemporaneous expression of something of which all our performing arts can be proud. of and this delirious audience of the faithful, the believers and the acknowledgers participated in something that could readily grace any stage in the world.   One might say – as one of New Zealand’s finest tariff-free exports. 

So Neil, thank you for the thank you.  Even this rather hoary old correspondent was definitely up and bopping at the end.

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An achingly Sublime Streetcar finessed to Perfection

Reviewed by Malcolm Calder

A Streetcar Named Desire

Based on the play by Tennesee Williams

Scottish National Ballet

Dir: Nancy Meckler

Chor: Annabelle Lopez Ochoa

Scenario: Nancy Meckler and Annabelle Lopez Ochoa

Music & Sound Des: Peter Salem

Orch: Robert Baxter, Auckland Phimharmonia

Des: Nicola Turner

LX Des: Tim Mitchel

Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Aotea Centre

Until 23 March

Reviewed by Malcolm Calder

Founder Peter Darrell relocated his Bristol-based company to Glasgow in 1957 promising to entertain the widest possible public and to introduce both contemporary themes and the influence of other theatrical skills to dance as the Scottish Ballet.

With A Streetcar Named Desire and fifty years later The Scottish Ballet continues to do so.  In spades.

Streetcar draws many facets together.  Firstly, it takes a well-known stage drama, fiddles a bit with Williams’s original opening scenes on the demise of the Du Bois family and Blanche’s descent from pure white chiffon to her arrival in a comparatively down-market New Orleans.  And then it takes off – becoming the Tragedy of Blanche Du Bois.

Nicola Turner’s set combines cinematic suggestions mixed with minimalist theatrical staging, costumes and snatches of dialogue as well as music straight from the 1940s, Streetcar uses simple beer crates to evolve magically into a streetcar, a brothel, a market, a bedroom or a bowling alley.  Scenes slide into other scenes, then unfold, merge and reverse.  I suspect Williams would have been quietly smiling – wholeheartedly and very contentedly.

His is the tale of a Blanche who denies her past, who is dismissive of well-meaning sister Stella, and who is irresistibly drawn to both alcohol and to men – Stella’s husband Stanley  in particular – as she tries to gain attention to make herself feel better about herself.  And all the while she clutches for that unattainable paper moon. 

Today Blanche would quite probably be diagnosed with severe depression and even mental illness.  But Streetcar is set 80 years ago and even prozac did not exist.  A gradual descent into severe depression is the inevitable result.

Underpinning everything are the symbols around which the story unfolds.  The outsized splotch of blood on Alan’s shirt whenever he re-enters Blanche’s both conscious and unconscious minds, the redness of flowers suggesting death and that omnipresent paper moon hovering –  a forever an unattainable dream.

Tim Mitchell’s lighting sets moods, isolates space and reflects Blanche’s descent while Peter Salem’s cinematic score is sympathetically handled by a mix of touring principals and the Auckland Philharmonia under Robert Baxter.  Intriguingly, it is a smooth and remarkably strong mix of pre-recorded sounds — trains, church bells, malicious whispers — and a wide ranging fusion from wedding waltzes to the brassy world of 1940s New Orleans jazz.

Roseanna Leney gives us a remarkably multi-faceted Blanche, her pas de deux with Evan Loudon (the would-be macho strong-man Stanley) a study in character development.  Yes, he does rape her, but it is Blanche who appears very much in control.  In contrast, her passive and even dismissive handling of the earnest Mitch reveals further dimension to her Blanche.  And, even though a minor role, I enjoyed Bruno Micchiardi’s bumbling and almost Chaplinesque creation of Mitch. However, as her eventual spiral and demise grow and take hold, so does her strength dissipate and Stanley is allowed revealed to be the cad that he is during the final sickening showdown.

The corp are busy throughout with pair work prevalent, quite possibly echoing Blanche’s predilections about others.

This Streetcar can only be described as finessed to fluidic perfection.

Wellington audiences enjoy two different works and it is great to see RNZB featuring cooperatively on this program as well.

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Tony Fomison : Life of the Artist

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Tony Fomison : Life of the Artist

By Mark Forman

Auckland University Press

RRP $59.99

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Mark Forman’s new book on Tony Fomison is a superb piece of scholarship which adds to our understanding of the life of one of the great New Zealand artists of the late twentieth century.  His writing is particularly informative as there are no images of Fomison’s work in the book. The trustees of his estate, his three daughters, withheld permission to use his work because of assumptions and inaccuracies.

Forman has made up for this with perceptive descriptions of many of the artists important works as well as providing an understanding of the artist and the environment in which he developed his work

Forman’s detailed research, obvious from his bibliography along with the numerous interviews he had with other artists, family members and friends enabled him to give the reader insights into Fomison life and thoughts. He has also included a number of quotes from newspapers and magazines of reviews of the artist’s work and there are also accounts of Fomison irritation at unfavourable reviews.

Fomison had been to Ilam Art School at Canterbury University where he had met  a number of artists who he would be friends for the rest of his life including Quentin McFarlane and Des Helmore, Later he would meet Philip Clairmont, Allen Maddox and Colin McCahon. He was also influenced by some of the tutors at Ilam notably Bill Sutton and Rudi Gopas.

In the chapters covering his later life Forman has accounts of his involvement with his various gallerists including Elva Bett, Tina and Kees Hos, Peter McLeavey as well as John Gow and Gary Langsford. There were also other important figures who helped and supported him such as Charles Brasch and Jim and Mary Barr

In the 1960s, Fomison began painting and exhibiting portraits that were, even then very different from many of the other portraits by his peers. His were often distorted, maniacal and tapped into his own troubled life.

Also in the 1960’s as well as pursuing an art career he studied and recorded a number of the Māori rock drawings in Canterbury which became part of his art references

The 1970s was a particularly troubled period in Fomison’s life  after he had returned from  Europe which had included a spell in a mental institution.

He was down and out, grappling with drug addiction, and he began producing  work which was contemptuous and cynical about society.

Many of these artists he identified with were ‘outsider artists’ which Fomison identified with and his dark figures and landscape  began to emerge in his paintings. His monsters, misfits, and medical deformities challenged polite society, and explored what it means to be an outsider. Fomison began to paint people on the edges of society, such as prisoners and the disfigured.

Tony Fomison Grotto Road, Onehunga, Auckland. Image Mark Adams

Living in Auckland for much of his life, he had a strong connection to the local Samoan community and in 1980 made the decision to be tattooed with a Samoan pe’a.  This and his response to the Springbok tour of 1981was part of the artists unconventional or subversive approach to social and political issues

Forman includes numerous quotes from friends and fellow artists along with reviews which allude to Fomison’ s art as being related to distant periods rather than addressing contemporary issues  so that Francis Pound said of his work that it was “akin to that of a seventeenth century primitive” while Hamish Keith wrote that his figures were “sinister and unpleasant… giving of an Old Master complex” and Peter Simpson said he “has something of the impoverished yet eloquent beauty of late Michelangelo”

Fomison led a challenging personal life, which often could be seen in his paintings. As Ian Wedde says, ‘Fomison persisted with thinking and with making art out of his thoughts.’ Following a trip to Europe in the mid 1960s, and a short stint in institutions, Fomison began to paint people on the edges of society, such as prisoners and the disfigured. He would repeatedly return to the theme of the ‘outsider’. Fomison’s work was also often ‘socially committed’, protest the state of the world.

In his career spanning three decades, Fomison produced some of New Zealand’s most significant paintings and drawings, which seemed to incorporate elements of his own  physical journey as well as the spiritual and aesthetic journey, linking ideas that he developed along with his whimsical and dark attitude to life.

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Gene Kelly; A Life in Music

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Gene Kelly; A Life in Music

With the Auckland Philharmonia conducted by Neil Thomson

Auckland Town Hall

March 15

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

It was billed as Gene Kelly; A life in Music but it could equally have been called Patricia Ward Kelly; A life in Music as the show which was written by his wife was brilliantly presented as she narrated the life of the dancer with the music played by the Auckland Philharmonia along with crisp remastered clips  from his films.

The two met in the mid 1980s, when he was 73 and Patricia was a 31-year- expert on the works of Herman Melville who had never seen any of the actor/dancer’s films. He asked  her if she would work with him on his autobiography which she did, for five years.

They married when he was 77 years, and each day she documented and recoded his life, This close association with him made her the most knowledgeable person about the dancer’s career.

Her knowledge, of Gene, the music and films all merge into a superb account of Kelly’s life as well as a snapshot of American dance movies of the mid twentieth century.

Most of his iconic films were shown including scenes from Singin’ in the Rain, An American in Paris, Brigadoon, Summer Stock, Les Girls and It’s Always Fair Weather.

We saw him perform with Ginger Rogers, Leslie Caron, and Cyd Charisse as well as with an animated Jerry the Mouse getting a dance lesson from Gene Kelly in “Anchors Aweigh”.

We also get to hear the music of the great composers of the time as well -Andre Previn Lerner & Loewe, Cole Porter and the Gershwins.

We also get to appreciate the clever way in which realism and abstraction was used in  the sets. This combination created some surreal dance sequences with vivid use of colour which highlights the spectacle of the dance routines and shows how Kelly helped change the nature of dance on film with a new mode of choreography and filming.

For the introduction to the second half which featured clips from Brigadoon she had a piper stride up the aisle and then in a surprise appearance she introduced Michael Crawford of Phantom of The Opera fame, who now lives in New Zealand and who acknowledged Kelly as a major influence in getting the role.

Patricia Kelly’s  presentation brought  clever showmanship and intimacy to the evening accompanied by the Auckland Philharmonia conducted Neil Thomson.

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HEDY! The Life & Inventions of Hedy Lamar

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

HEDY! The Life & Inventions of Hedy Lamar

Written and performed by Heather Massie

Q Theatre

March 13- 16

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

While she never got an Oscar, Hedy Lamarr was considered the most beautiful woman in the world and was one of the great movie stars of the mid twentieth century. She starred in many films including “Samsom and Delilah and the Czech film “Ecstasy” which featured a controversial orgasm scene which was banned in many countries.

She was divorced six times, making her one of the most divorced women of the twentieth century, a distinction beaten only by Elizabeth Taylor with seven.

But, in many ways, her greatest distinction was her invention (along with George Antheil} of  a “Secret Communication System,” which was a radio-guided device with anti-jamming frequencies which would have had the capacity to interfere with torpedo guidance systems during WWI. The US Navy declined to make use of it.

This device is a component of present-day satellite technology and cellular phone technology.

Her work as an inventor was eventually recognized in 1997 with the Sixth Annual Pioneer Award bestowed on her by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

These are some of the highlights of her career which were revealed in Heather Massie’s one-woman autobiographical show, “Hedy Lamarr”.

Lamarr reminisces about her life, her father, her time in Vienna and later her career in Hollywood. There are her relationships with the various men in her life – an armaments producer, a count, Louis B Meyer and various director and actors.

Many of them were presented by Heather Massie using a of range voices to create to give depth to her performance, although she gave most of the men pretty much the same clichéd accent. Her account of Jimmy Stewart, however, was a delightfully, breathless portrait of the actor.

The various events and activities referred to showed the range of Lamarr’s interests and encounters with her quotes indicating a shrewd mind and a keen observer of life.

Massie managed to turn Lamarr into a remarkable complicated but simple figure who seems to know a lot about life, men and the workings of the world as well as making shrewd observation about her life and her inventions.

However, Massie galloped through her “tutorial” about her guidance system with not much time to appreciate just how important the invention could have been to the war effort.

Massie’s presentation has Lamarr engage the various people in her life over the phone or in having on stage conversations so effectively that in retrospect it seems they were with there on stage.

She also engaged with the audience as a whole and in many cases with individual audience members, a technique which worked as a means of creating Lamarr as well as providing a classy example of how to create a character.

To subscribe or follow New Zealand Arts Review site – www.nzartsreview.org.

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Lula Washington Dance Theatre

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Lula Washington Dance Theatre

Aotea Centre

March 13 -16

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

The Lula Washington Dance Theatre is a contemporary modern dance company  in Los Angeles which has performed across the United States and toured internationally. It was established forty years ago when Lula Washington realised there were few black dance institutions in America  .

They have a stylish approach to contemporary dance incorporating elements of African and Caribbean dance as well as contemporary modern dance and ballet. All these elements were seen in the opening number where three dancers – Love, Faith and Hope,  performed to  heavy beats, foot stomping and clapping with the audience encouraged to add to the heavy clapping to that of the dancers and he riotous drumming morphed from African beats to something closer to hip hop.

Three female dancers were joined by male dancers who became intertwined and there was a sense of the dancers and audience all part of a church service, street performance or gym workout.

Accompanying the hectic dancing were references to American segregation, slavery, lynchings and race riots – Charleston, Springfield, Watts and an image of George Floyd

Accompanying this dancing was some relentless drumming with and  intense energy more akin to that of a night club and each of the sequences was given multiple bursts of applause from the audience.

Throughout this sequence the woman danced like ghost or departed spirits, their dancing a combination of celebration and remembrance of the African roots of the movements and music.

Because of the emphasis on these aspects the dances all seemed to be something of a political force and the dancers’ political activists.

In a later sequence one of the dancers shouts out the repeated chant “America is killing me” and this was accompanied by a visceral scream, a dramatic event one would not encounter in a Royal New Zealand Ballet performance and shows the level of the political urgency behind the Lula Washington project.

There was an intensity to many  of the dances with a physically close to that of a Whirling Dervish. But alongside this there were elements of playfulness and whimsy which were all performed with a finesse close to that of classical ballet dancers.

The political or polemical aspects of the dances often felt to be less satisfying of the performance without a dance vocabulary which did not express the angst and anger which was conveyed in the words which accompanied the dance.

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Dick Frizzell’s picaresque memoir of the artist as a young man

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Hastings. A boy’s own adventure

Dick Frizzell

Massey University Press

RRP $37.00

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Many geniuses are recognized early on in their lives. Mozart had written 10 symphonies by the time he was 14, Pablo Picasso was turning out some skilful nudes when he was 14 and  Dick Frizzell did a drawing of Christopher Lee as Frankenstein’s monster at the same age.

However, neither Mozart nor Picasso wrote a decent autobiography about growing up which is where Frizzell has the edge over the other two.

His new book recounting his early years, “Hastings, A boy’s own adventure” is an entertaining set of stories which probably mirrors the life and times of many young men growing up in provincial New Zealand in the 1950’s and 60’s. It was a time of complete freedom when young men like Frizzell were learning the first of life’s lessons and enjoying life’s experiences.

In thirty chapters Frizzell recounts his adventures which provide  portraits of his family, descriptions of Hastings and sketches of his encounters with the day-to-day activities he was immersed in. Through these he  manages to provide an insight into his growing awareness and understanding of the world around him, conjuring up the experience of most young boys of his age, encountering the world of adults – aunts, uncles, family friends and  teachers.

We also get a sense of how he became Dick Frizzell the artist  with a mother who had been to art school  and taught him some artistic skills and a father who was well read and a technically accomplished engineer with his own enquiring and adventurous nature.  There are also his experiences of the landscape – Te Mata Peak and the farms of relatives where he worked or holidayed  There is also his love of  comics and movies, his interest in working environments and workmen It’s what we see in his artwork – a celebration of landscape and culture, history and everyday objects.

Frizzell says of these early years “I felt that I had the town covered: our Parkvale kingdom, Uncle George’s market gardens, Aunty Molly’s frock shop, Dad’s freezing works, my high school . . . the town was pretty much ring fenced by Frizzell’s! And I was there growing up with it. Rock ’n’ roll came along, the town became a city, Fantasyland was built, hoodlums trashed the Blossom festival, I learnt the Twist in the Labour and Trades Hall . . . everything I took within me towards adulthood came from Hastings.”

‘If I’d been asked to vote on it I would’ve said I’d landed at the centre of the universe. Standing on our corner of Sylvan Road and Victoria Street, with Te Mata Peak, the Tukituki River and the mad wilderness of Windsor Park to the back of me and the distinctly non-wilderness of Cornwall Park and the misty vista of the Ruahines in front of me, I was the master of all I could barely survey.”

We learn about his jobs, the same that probably every youth got living in Hastings – spells at the Tomoana Freezing Works (where his father worked) and at the Wattie’s canning factory.

But while his portraits of his mother and father and the likes  of his aunts Molly and Nora the figure which we most appreciate is the author with his achievements, blunders, successes and failures.

While the artist may have gained the image as the suave man about town. his early encounters with the opposite sex by his own accounts were less prepossessing. He recounts his inauspicious attempt at the seduction of Bunny as well as his fleeing from the amorous advances of the older Trixie.

It’s a coming-of-age book which will resonate with many older readers with its half-remembered tales of family life, friendships  and growing awareness of one’s place in the world.

To subscribe or follow New Zealand Arts Review site – www.nzartsreview.org.

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