112
Books Received
DON ABBOTT
John Kinder was a man who belonged
to another age. Stoic and devout, he
immigrated to New Zealand in 1855
and settled in Auckland, where he
set about shaping and recording the
new colony. In 1900 he responded
to a request from his nephew and
adoptive son to ‘write down any
particulars of my life which I may feel
disposed to do while I am still able’.
The resulting handwritten manuscript
has remained unpublished, stored
in the archive of Auckland Museum.
Now, to commemorate the Kinder
bicentennial, Michael Dunn has
published A Brief Account of My Life, a
transcription of this document, under
the auspices of The Kinder House
Society. This significant document is
now available to a wider audience than
those researchers who have scoured
the original papers, and whose output
has come to define this as a foundation
stone of Kinder scholarship.
The keen art historian will find little
discussion on art; the post-millennial
cynic will find no evidence of
Anglophilic yearning and pomposity;
instead the Reverend Kinder writes
clearly and concisely of the vicissitudes
of his life, which range from absolute
penury to unrequited love and far-
flung travels, both in Europe and New
Zealand.
Dunn has made available one of
the foremost pleasures of primary
research—the chance to encounter a
historical figure without a go-between,
and to learn something of the person
and their times through their own
words. Although unembellished and
quite matter-of-fact, Kinder’s words
hint at and reveal passion, despair,
pride, stubbornness, pain and hurt.
The qualities of observation and
perception in his written words are
enough to send the reader back to
Kinder’s paintings and photographs,
for the rewards of a new reassessment.
Historical figures play a large
part in the paintings reproduced
in Peter Ireland’s The Weight of the
Captain’s Wrist. James Cook and
Joseph Banks mix it up with Josiah
Wedgwood and Joshua Reynolds
in this attractive survey publication
of Ireland’s paintings, spanning the
last three or so decades. Ireland is
well versed in the history of art and
the history of New Zealand, and
he melds the two to create picturesthat stem from and speak to both.
His overlaying of images and text
adds depth, meaning and wit to
his paintings, which resonate with
ambiguity and complexity. Ireland’s
oeuvre is illuminated by a perceptive
introduction by Jane Stafford and Mark
Williams as well as a thorough essay
by Gerald Barnett; individual works
and series benefit from notes and
commentary from the artist himself.
The book is beautifully oversized,
allowing for close inspection of
the reproduced paintings, and is a
handsome addition to the stable of
publications by Rim Books.
A year ago New Plymouth’s Govett-
Brewster Art Gallery published an
artist book, of sorts: Easier by Tao
Wells. It is essentially a chronology
through the various art projects that
Wells has instigated, starting with
a 1987 drawing Left Hand, from the
artist’s School Certificate workbook,
through to a 2018 public sculpture
proposal in New Plymouth. The book
includes an excellent essay by Chris
Kraus, which looks back at Wells’ 2010
Letting Space initiative The Beneficiary’s
Office, in which he took out premises
in central Wellington to promote
unemployment and ‘subsistence on
public benefits as a positive lifestyle
choice’. Wells ‘studies the games’,
Kraus writes, ‘and then puts all of
the psychic and literal business that’s
conducted under the table onto the
table, exposing it to clear public view’.
Easier is a provocative and engaging
opportunity to track the development
andmaturationofthisactivistartist.(below) PETER IRELAND
Wellington Harbour Panorama (History) 1998–9
Oil on paper, 285 x 770 mm.
(Collection Simon Booth & Chris Raab)Don Abbott is Deputy Editor of Art New
Zealand, and author of Vivid: The Paul
Hartigan Story and Elizabeth Rees: I Paint.
Kriselle Baker is an Auckland-based editor,
art historian, writer and publisher.
Don Bassett is an Auckland-based art,
design and architectural historian. He has
published in several local and UK journals
and is author of a book on Felix Kelly.
Warwick Brown is an Auckland-based
collector, writer and consultant. In 2013 he
received an MNZM for services to the arts.
Malcolm Burgess lives in Wellington where
he is a writer, reviewer and adviser on the
literary and visual arts.
Jon Bywater teaches at Elam at The
University of Auckland, who supported his
travel to Venice.
Michael Dunn is Professor Emeritus in Fine
Arts and formerly Head of Elam and the
Art History Department at the University
of Auckland. He has written extensively on
New Zealand art.
Contributors
David Eggleton is a Dunedin-based writer,
critic and poet. His most recent collection
of poetry is Edgeland and Other Poems, with
artwork by James Robinson (2018).
Cassandra Fusco writes for and contributes
to local and international art publications.
Jasmine Gallagher is a doctoral candidate
at the University of Otago researching
the New Sincerity in contemporary New
Zealand art and poetry.
Edward Hanfling lives in Careys Bay and
teaches at the Dunedin School of Art, Otago
Polytechnic.
Peter Ireland is a Whanganui-based painter
with a close interest in photography since
the mid-1960s. He first wrote for Art New
Zealand in 1977 and, having recently retired,
this is his last piece for this magazine.
Bronwyn Lloyd is a writer living in
Mairangi Bay, Auckland.
Kyla Mackenzie is an Auckland-based
writer and freelance curator whose recent
doctoral research focused on John Weeks.Priscilla Pitts is a former director of Govett-
Brewster Art Gallery and Dunedin Public
Art Gallery. She now freelances as a writer
and curator.
Sophia Powers is the inaugural Marti
Friedlander Lecturer at The University of
Auckland.
Hanahiva Rose is a Wellington-based art
historian and writer from the islands of
Ra’iatea and Huahine and the people of Te
Atiawa and Ngai Tahu.
Peter Shand is Head of the Elam School of
Fine Arts, The University of Auckland. As a
writer and curator, his research interests are
concentrated on contemporary art, fashion
and the interrelation of creativity and law.
Peter Simpson is an Auckland writer,
editor and curator. He edited two volumes
of Charles Brasch’s Journals and the first of
his two-volume study of McCahon, There is
Only One Direction, Volume One, 1919–1959
will be published in October.