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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.

“Entombment (after Titian”), oil on cardboard on hardboard, 1947

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

“The Wake” (panel one) ink and oil on unstretched canvas on sixteen panels, 1956

“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.

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Diptych: Memorable Risk with Rewards aplenty

Reviewed by Malcolm Calder

Reviewed by Malcolm Calder

Auckland Arts Festival

Diptych

Peeping Tom, Belgium

Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Aotea Centre

Diptych: The missing door & The lost room

Concept / Directors, Gabriela Carrizo and FranckChartier

Until 24 March

Review by Malcolm Calder

I normally try and write these words as soon as possible after a performance.  But this time I couldn’t and eventually decided to sleep on it.  Only I couldn’t sleep either.  In my mind images and thoughts swirled in what I could only describe as atmospheric convolution.

But first things first. Diptych comprises two parts – the first about a missing door, and the second about a lost room.  There is a third part, making it a Triptych, but we don’t see that here in this Auckland program.

My over-weaning sense of this company is the dynamic, slick and truly mesmerising movement in its choreography.  Belgian founders Gabriela Carrizo and Franck Chartier have established Peeping Tom as a unique force in dance theatre transforming hyperrealist settings into unstable universes that defy the logic of time, space, and mood.  This work and the company’s lineage to Pina Bausch are clearly evident and I can easily see why Artistic Director Shona McCullagh chose it as one of the centrepieces of her 2024 Festival.

As well as movement, Diptych also owes much to an all-enveloping soundscape that adds a hypnotic quality, overlaying music with live percussion and everyday noises.  This underpins the sheer physicality and many of the jarring and emotional shocks that lie ahead.

The staging starts out tiny and winds up using the full breadth of the stage giving it a cinemascopic quality.  And, just in case we missed it, the entire work is cinematic.  This is underscored by the introduction of rolling klieg lights, a boom mic and a set that is deconstructed then reconstructed by technicians in full view of the audience.

Completing the context, and further highlighting the illusion, are costumes that writhe and twist almost becoming creatures and taking on characters of their own, whilst echoing the movements of the dancers whose movements who, it seems, are controlled by non-logical and even gravitational forces.

Then my mind returned to ponder the word ‘convolution’ itself.  Turns out it’s a term that describes a form or shape that is folded in tortuous windings, or one of the irregular ridges on the cerebrum of higher mammals oran intricacy of form, design, or structure in which the combinations of power and the caprices of the powerful are ever-present dangers to survival (thanks Mr Merriam-Webster).

Yep, that’s about right I decided.  And henceforth, for me, Diptych became a convoluted dance theatre work.

I knew it was about a man’s mental anguish and I immersed myself in that tangled web.  It has no single direction veering between reality, memories, desires, dreams and nightmares.  At times I was slow to grasp a thread; at others I got it instantly.

Eventually I just stopped fretting about trying to work things out in any logical or linear fashion, sat back and let it wash or surge, over me.  And I’m glad I did because that is what Diptych is all about.  Rather than trying to ‘understand’ what Carrizo and Chartier were trying to say, the production itself taught me to just soak in it, to absorb it.

Yes, there was a missing door; and yes there were many surprises when some were opened.  But the perceptions, context, memory and horrors of doing so were different for every character on stage.   Similarly, an entire room got lost and the same applied.

What Festivals are supposed to do is introduce us to the new, the different and the normally unattainable.  So congratulations to the Festival for taking this risk with Dyptych.  It was certainly memorable for me – so much so that it never occurred to turn my phone back on again when leaving the theatre and I missed a raft of calls the next morning.

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Derek Jarman’s Delphinium Days coming in June

John Daly-Peoples

Derek Jarman, The Garden

Derek Jarman: Delphinium Days
Gus Fisher Gallery, 15 June-14 September 2024
City Gallery Wellington, 19 October 2024- 2 February 2025

John Daly-Peoples

This June, Auckland’s Gus Fisher Gallery opens Derek Jarman: Delphinium Days, New Zealand’s first exhibition of this highly significant figure influential artists and gay rights activists of his generation. Entry is free. 

He was the first public figure in the UK to make his HIV positive status known, the exhibition marks 30 years since his untimely death to an AIDS related illness at the age of 52. 

The exhibition curated by Lisa Beauchamp, ( Gus Fisher Gallery), Aaron Lister (City Gallery , and Michael Lett will feature seen paintings, films, photographs and archival material by and about the artist, which will offer an in-depth and affecting view of this celebrated cultural figure whose impact remains profound today. 

Beauchamp says “The exhibition will also cement Jarman’s familial connection to Aotearoa through his father Lancelot,” she says. 

Jarman’s father Lancelot Elworthy Jarman was born in Canterbury in 1907 after Jarman’s grandparents immigrated from Britain in 1888. 

“To bring this part of his life to the fore in Derek Jarman: Delphinium Days will add so much to our understanding and connection to him as one of the most enduringly relevant and impactful artists of modern times,” adds Beauchamp.

Jarman was a prolific creative best known for his avant-garde films, who pushed boundaries to move skilfully between painting, film, writing, set design, performance and gardening. 

Jarman was an early campaigner for the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community and people with AIDs, after being diagnosed as HIV positive himself in 1986.

Co-curator Michael Lett says: “Derek Jarman was one of my first encounters with a fully formed, human gay man. As a teenager reading “Modern Nature” quietly in my room, I found a complex man, who had friends, had sex, got angry, liked to garden and was open about being HIV positive.” 

Jarman’s films are widely known, including Caravaggio (1986) and The Garden (1990) starring his longtime collaborator and muse Tilda Swinton; cult-favourite Jubilee (1978) and his last ever feature film Blue (1993). In Auckland, Gus Fisher Gallery will partner with The Capitol Cinemas to present a selection of Jarman’s most well-loved feature films by the artist.

Jarman helped set the cultural zeitgeist for the time, with his art speaking to and for the dispossessed and alienated, as well as his writing, including Modern Nature (1991) and At your own risk (1992). Many will also be familiar with his music videos for iconic bands like Pet Shop Boys, The Smiths, and Sex Pistols. 

Major painted works from Jarman’s late ‘Evil Queen’ series will be included in the exhibition, as well as a selection of his famous tar paintings and landscapes that connect to his garden at Dungeness. A selection of Jarman’s rarely seen Super 8 films will also be featured.  

The artist himself will feature in a range of tender images by Jarman’s close friend and photographer Howard Sooley.

A dynamic public programme of events will be delivered in Auckland and Wellington to help the exhibition resonate with broad audiences, informed by kōrero with Aotearoa’s LGBTQIA+ communities. 

“By using the exhibition as a catalyst to reduce the stigma associated with HIV and AIDS, we plan to offer meaningful engagement opportunities for rainbow audiences and allies,” says Beauchamp. 

She says Jarman became a beacon of hope for those isolated from society. 

“His artworks and social commentary are a powerful mechanism against a rising tide of hatred and homophobia. Whether through painting, film, gardening or writing, his creativity knew no bounds and continues to influence generations of artists globally.”

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Sculpture on the Gulf: Waiheke’s great art exhibition

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Brett Graham “Wakefield Dreaming”

Sculpture on the Gulf

Waiheke Island

Until April 1

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

A few years ago Waiheke’s Sculpture on the Gulf was included in the New York Times top things to do and the event is regarded by many as one of the great outdoor sculpture exhibitions, not just for the standard of the sculpture but also for the experience of the two kilometre walk with a backdrop of  bush, hills, sea and headlands as well as  panoramic  views of distant Auckland and  the islands of the gulf.

The event attracts tens of thousands of people for the five week show which features over twenty-one works, down from the twenty-seven of the last show two years ago.

There is a bit of a surprise mid-way through sculpture walk seeing  Jorge Wright’s monumental Corten steel work “Head Within” standing only a few metres from where it was two years. It was bought by the owner of the property which abuts the sculpture walk.

Many of the works in this years exhibition have strong architectural and historical connections, reflecting on the changing built environment and the congruent changes to the natural environment.

Turumeke Harrington “Stumped I-XII”

Turumeke Harrington slices of  native trees in “Stumped I-XII” reference the trees which once covered Tamaki Makura while  Chevron Hassett’s “Te Kupenga” welcoming entranceway with its 19th century fretwork would have been built with that cut timber.

Chevron Hassett “Te Kupenga”

There is Ana Iti’s “Whakaruruhau”, a deconstructed work of structural elements which is also similar to the more elaborate work of Lonnie Hutchinson’s “Moemoea – A model for Dreaming”  where her designs in turn relate to Chevron Hassett’s “Te Kupenga”.

Yona Lee’s “Fountain in Transit” uses the steel tubing she often uses to construct interior space with her to create a shower nestled in the bush.

Oliver Stretton-Pow’s marooned lighthouse “Hard Graft” links architecture to plant growth, timber and the tendrils of ocean creatures, referencing the country’s maritime history.

There are references to international architecture and art with  Natalie Guy’s “The Staircase” a homage to Carla Scarpa’s innovative use of materials and designs. Another reference to international art can be seen in Seung Yul Oh’s “Cycloid I, II, III, IV, V, and VI” which mimic Alexander Calder’s lively and colourful shapes . Here the works are like abstract bushes  growing alongside the path.

Seung Yul Oh “Cycloid I, II, III, IV, V, and VI”

There is an architectural component to Nicholas Galanin’s “An Unmarked Grave Deep Enough to Bury Colony and Empire” which uses the outline of Queen Victorias statue as a template for the grave he has dug on the headland.

The most powerful of the architectural works is Brett Graham’s “Wakefield Dreaming” which dominates the headland with his references to the justice system and the overreach of surveillance

Gavin Hipkins’ “Hotel Flag”  evolved from the nautical flag representing the letter H, the first letter of the artists name, it also references the abstract geometric art of Malevich or Stephen Bambury.

Steve Carr’s bronze tires “In Bloom (Waiheke)” can be seen as a sort of self-portrait while Eddie Clemens’ “Cognitive Reorientation” also references his interest in cars as a defining aspect.

Combing aspects of rural farm architecture and religious iconography is Ralph Hotere’s “Taranaki Gate Stations”. The work is based on the Passion of Jesus Christ and originally conceived for Easter 1981

Ralph Hotere “Taranaki Gate Stations”

The work consists of  a cruciform-shaped pen using fourteen standard pipe-and-mesh farm-fence units, with fourteen numbered sheep in.  The gates are marked with Roman numerals (I–XIV) and the sheep painted with Arabic ones (1–14), both in a spectrum of fourteen colours. The various shapes and numbers relate to the stations of the cross and other religious concepts. The work also links back twenty years  to Gregor Kregar’s “Mathew 12/12” shown St  at SOTG in 2003 where he displayed 12 live sheep linked to the biblical text.

Zac Langdon-Pole “Chimera”

Probably the strangest work in the show is Zac Langdon-Pole’s “Chimera”, a dinosaurs skull hanging from a crane which could have been unearthed from the Queen Victoria excavation in a quirky reference to the country’s past.

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New book on Reuben Paterson links the poetic, the political and the personal

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Reuben Paterson

City Gallery Wellington and Extended Whānau

RRP $110.00

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

City Gallery Wellington has recently published a stunning monograph on Reuben Paterson  which follows on from his exhibition Reuben Paterson: The Only Dream Left  which was exhibited at the gallery last year. ​

The book is lavishly illustrated with works covering his thirty years of art practice and features writings by Witi Ihimaera, curator and writer Geraldine Barlow, and the exhibition’s curators Aaron Lister and Karl Chitham.

Reuben Paterson,  Pounamu  and The Jade Cat

There are over 100 full colour illustrations as well as some ”booklet” inserts which captures the unique range and depth of Paterson’s art from his early glitter paintings to his recent major sculptural commissions.

There are images of several of his monumental works such as the “Get Down Upon Your Knees”, the 8-metre square work shown at the Asia Pacific Triennial in Brisbane as well as the mural work “Andale, Andale” at Auckland’s Newmarket Railway Station. There are also the “The Golden Promise” at the Massey University Albany campus as well as the controversial ”Freedom Flowers”, the ANZ cash point terminal on Ponsonby Road commissioned for the 2015 Pride Festival.

Reuben Paterson,  “Andale, Andale” Auckland’s Newmarket Railway Station.

His use of glitter and diamond dust on canvas or paper of stereotypical  images are manipulated and transformed by his individual treatment of colour, design, pattern and texture. His images often referenced botanical, op art, or Māori iconography along with images which are commercial or kitsch. The sparkling surfaces create an ambivalent visual description with works such as the “Take my hand and off we stride” featuring the idyllic Pacific Island palm tree landscape.

Underneath the seductive images there are more complex ideas  and viewpoints which take the viewer into the artist’s view of nature, the tangible and the symbolic as well as his own whakapapa referencing his Ngati Rangitihi, Ngai Tuhoe, Tuhourangi and Scottish descent.

Paterson’s political or social messages are also referenced in some of the works where he has used animal images  such as the tiger in “Blessing”, conveying the sense of power, sexuality and fear. These works were motivated by his efforts to highlight the inequality of the ‘gay panic’ provocation defence for murder that was in place before a repeal of the Crimes Act in 2009. 

A culmination of many of his ideas and technical expertise has been “Guide Kaiārahi”  the major commission for the Auckland Art Gallery. The idea for the ten-metre-high waka which is made from hundreds of shimmering crystals, originated in the legend of a phantom waka that appeared at Lake Tarawera ten days before the eruption of Mt Tarawera in 1886. Combining references to natural and supernatural realms, the sculpture draws upon Māori cosmology and creation narratives.

Reuben Paterson, “Guide Kaiārahi”   (detail)

The book shows the extent of his influences and interests apart from his use of cheesy imagery –  Dutch still life painting, elements of Greek and Roman art, Op art and Rorschach patterns. The essays also reveal some of his interests in scientific, political and social ideas along with the spiritual aspects of his work.

Nature and botanical subjects are central to the artists life and many of the artist works  His father was a landscape gardener and he has a garden himself which can be seen as an influence on his work with its emphasis on colour, seasons, birth and transformation.

One major work which focusses on Nature is “The Golden Bearing”, a life size golden tree which links to the various emblematic trees over history, from George Fraziers “The Golden Bough”, Eastern and Mayan ideas of creation as well as that of Maori.

Reuben Paterson, The Golden Bearing

As Witi Ihimaera says of the work “In Paterson’s garden the tree is a promise of the legacy of nature for a humankind that appears hellbent on destroying the planet. It is an achingly awe-inspiring way point from which we can orient ourselves to a future if we wish it to become a paradise regained rather than lost”.

The book itself is an elegant and lavish production with designers Extended Whānau ensuring that Paterson’s work is presented in a way which allows for an appreciation and understanding  of his paintings and sculptural work.

The images and texts manage to not only show the development of the artist’s work but link the poetic, the political and the personal to show an artist who is deeply committed to exploring the many threads which make up contemporary New Zealand culture.

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Multi-million dollar gift goes on show at the Auckland Art Gallery

John Daly-Peoples

Pablo Picasso, Mère aux enfants à l’orange (Mother and children with an orange), 1951, 
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of Julian and Josie Robertson through the Auckland Art Gallery Foundation, 2023

The Robertson Gift: Paths through Modernity

Auckland Art Gallery

February 9 – February 2026

Opening at the Auckland Art Gallery on 9 February and running for two years will be the exhibition “The Robertson Gift: Paths through Modernity” comprising fifteen major artworks valued in excess of $250million. The works are a long-promised gift from the collection of New York philanthropists Julian (1932– 2022) and Josie Robertson (1943–2010).

The collection features influential modern European artists, including Pierre Bonnard, Georges Braque, Paul Cezanne, Salvador Dalí, André Derain, Henri Fantin-Latour, Paul Gauguin, Fernand Léger, Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian and Pablo Picasso.

Director of Auckland Art Gallery, Kirsten Lacy says that the Gallery could not realise such a selection of artworks without Julian and Josie’s vision.

“Patronage of this scale is unprecedented, and the collection of modern masterpieces is unique. The Robertson’s gift is unquestionably the most transformative bequest of international art to the country in the past century,” says Lacy.

The couple divided their lives between New York and Aotearoa New Zealand ever since their first visit to Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland in 1978–1979. The Robertson’s extraordinary gift acknowledges the lasting connections the couple formed with Aotearoa New Zealand and their passion for modern art. Robertson was an investor and developer in the US and New Zealand. He owned three lodges including  Kauri Cliffs Lodge and several wineries. He was also one of the few non-New Zealanders to receive a knighthood.

Beginning with post-Impressionist works of the late 19th century and ending with a monumental colour-field painting from the 1960s, the exhibition takes visitors on a journey through the major art movements of the modern era, including Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Surrealism, and post-war abstraction.

Henri Matisse, Espagnole (buste). (The Spanish Woman), 1922. Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of Julian and Josie Robertson through the Auckland Art Gallery Foundation, 2023

Included in the 23 mainly works on paper  by Matisse is “Espagnole (buste) [The Spanish Woman]” painted in  1922. The work was purchased at Sotheby’s in 2007 for between  USD 12,000,000 – 16,000,000 .

The auction house described the work as one of the finest portraits from Matisse’s Nice period of the 1920s, when his skills as a colourist were at their most expressive.   This is one of his more intimate compositions that allows for a close engagement with the young model, who is dressed in the exotic costume of a Spanish women.  Matisse’s best pictures of this period focused on light-filled, and often profusely decorated interiors, with seductive models.

The work is very similar to “Espagnole: Harmonie en bleu (Spanish Woman: Harmony in Blue)” of the same period which is in the collection of the MET in New York.

André Derain, Paysage à l’Estaque (Estaque Landscape), 1906, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of Julian and Josie Robertson through the Auckland Art Gallery Foundation, 2023

Derain’s  “Estaque Landscape” of 1906 was painted when the artist and Henri Matisse, spent the transformative summer of 1905 in Collioure in the south of France. Together, they painted similar views of the coastal village, encouraging one another to adopt brighter colours, bolder brushstrokes, and flatter compositions in their depictions of the surrounding landscape. This style of painting, became known as Fauvism

A recent Christies Auction featured a similar work which sold for USD $5,580,000

Georges Braque, Le Guéridon (Vase Gris et Palette). Pedestal table (Grey vase and palette), 1938, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of Julian and Josie Robertson through the Auckland Art Gallery Foundation, 2023

Georges Braque, said of works such as  “Le Guéridon (Vase Gris et Palette). Pedestal table (Grey vase and palette)”, “No object can be tied down to any one sort of reality. Everything, I realized, is subject to metamorphosis; everything changes according to the circumstances. So when you ask me whether a particular form in one of my paintings depicts a woman’s head, a fish, a vase, a bird, or all four at once, I can’t give you a categorical answer, for this ‘metamorphic’ confusion is fundamental to what I am out to express”

Fernand Léger, Les Pistons (The Pistons), 1918, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of Julian and Josie Robertson through the Auckland Art Gallery Foundation, 2023

Fernand Léger’s, Les Pistons (The Pistons), of 1918, is from a series  which references  contemporary urban life and features many abstract shapes including mechanical, tubular forms, discs, vertical, horizontal and diagonal bands of colour as well as other less clearly definable shapes that coexist with glimpses of modern urban architecture and the anonymous citizens who animate it.

Salvador Dalí, Instrument masochiste (Masochistic Instrument), circa 1934, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of Julian and Josie Robertson through the Auckland Art Gallery Foundation, 2023

Salvador Dalí’s, “Instrument masochiste (Masochistic Instrument)’ shows a nude woman shedding a part of her skin in the form of a violin. The violin is the protagonist and the woman is an antagonist in the painting. Symbolically, it identifies Dali’s strong resistance towards music. The bow hitting the cypress tree adds his imagination of equating music with mortality and despair. It also represents Dali’s impotence obsession and overall neurosis. The cypress trees reminded him of the Pitchot estate, where he would spend long, happy hours in erotic daydreams.

Another of the works from this series sold recently 2019 for GBP 611,250

Paul Gauguin, Cow in Meadow, Rouen, 1884, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of Julian and Josie Robertson through the Auckland Art Gallery Foundation, 2023

Paul Gauguin’s “Cow in meadow Rouen” is part of a group of interrelated paintings, where he focused his attention on rural views such as a stream where cows came to water, selecting a different vantage point for each composition
Three or four canvases from this experimental group were among the nineteen paintings that Gauguin showed at the eighth and final Impressionist Exhibition in 1886.

A similar work from the period sold in 2019  for USD 783,750

Pablo Picasso, Femme à la résille (Woman in a hairnet), 1938, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of Julian and Josie Robertson through the Auckland Art Gallery Foundation, 2023

Pablo Picasso painted “Femme à la résille (Woman in a hairnet)” in 1938, at the height of his relationship with the photographer Dora Maar

A similar work from the series but twice the size of the Robertson work sold at Christies in 2015 for USD67million.

The other Pablo Picasso in the collection, his “Mere Aux Enfants A L’Orange” was sold at Sotheby’s November 2002. for USD 3,639,500

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