46 LISTENER AUGUST 3 2019
BOOKS&CULTURE
tremendous amount about what he was going to paint, that
there was a great deal of time that he spent just in thinking about
the work he was doing. He said that the painting itself was very
hard work, also that he threw out a large amount of his work at
an early stage. He stressed how much he rejected, that he threw
out far more than he kept. He talked about his paintings needing
to be truthful.
I asked what he painted. He said that he painted beauty, and
that he thought a lot about Christ, and Christ’s life, and that
he painted that. He said, “No one seems to know what I’m on
about. It amazes me. No one seems to know that I am painting
Christ.”
There was silence in the room. I wanted to see if he would elab-
orate on that idea, but he didn’t. I said that, for me, his paintings
gave a tremendous feeling of serenity, and he said: “That is what
they are supposed to do.”
I asked about his religion. I had assumed that he was a Roman
Catholic, I suppose from the name, and from the fact that he
often uses Roman Catholic imagery, but he said no, that he
wasn’t a Catholic, though he would have liked to be one, that
it would have fitted in with his emotional philosophy, but that
they wouldn’t have him ...
I asked him to explain, but he just said: “They didn’t consider
that I was a suitable person.” He laughed and wouldn’t say anyA PLACE TO PAINT: COLIN MCCAHON IN AUCKLAND
Auckland Art Gallery, August 10 to January 27
An exhibition tracing the artist’s 30 years in Auckland features
25 key paintings drawn from the gallery’s collection and pri-
vate holdings. It also marks the first public display of painted
windows from the convent chapel of the Sisters of our Lady
of the Missions in Remuera, which were gifted to the people
of Auckland after the chapel was decommissioned in 1989.
The event runs in parallel with From the Archive: Colin McCahon in
Auckland, which charts McCahon’s relationship with Auckland
Art Gallery, where he worked before teaching at Elam School
of Fine Arts.ACROSS THE EARTH: 100 YEARS OF COLIN MCCAHON
Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, showing now.
An exhibition of McCahon’s paintings on loose canvas of his
“Muriwai period”, which includes the Urewera Triptych (1975), a
sister painting to the Urewera Mural – the work McCahon was
commissioned to paint for Te Urewera’s Aniwaniwa Visitor
Centre that was famously stolen in 1997. It was recovered two
years later.COLIN MCCAHON: A CONSTANT FLOW OF LIGHT
Hocken Library, Dunedin, February 29 to June 6, 2020.
Next year’s exhibition draws from the institution’s collection
and focuses on McCahon’s work between the mid-1930s and
mid-1970s. It will coincide with a exhibition at the Dunedin
Public Art Gallery, the two shows a recognition of McCahon’s
Dunedin roots.COLIN MCCAHON: A CENTENARY EXHIBITION
Te Manawa Museum of Art, Science and History, Palmerston North,
July 27 to November 3.
The Palmerston North institution is mounting an exhibition of
20 or so McCahon works from Te Manawa Art Society’s collec-
tion as well as two 1937 pen-and-ink portraits of McCahon by
Toss Woollaston, whose 1936 exhibition at the Dunedin Public
Art Gallery helped inspire the young McCahon’s painting.COLIN MCCAHON: THERE IS ONLY ONE DIRECTION, VOL. I 19191959
Published by Auckland University Press in October.
Art historian Peter Simpson follows his 2007 Colin McCahon: The
Titirangi Years, 1953-1959 with the first of an illustrated two-vol-
ume work that will chronicle the artist’s work over his 45-year
career.CURNOW ON MCCAHON AND PILGRIM’S PROGRESS.
COLIN MCCAHON’S JOURNEY TOWARDS THE PROMISED LAND
Christchurch Art Gallery, August 4.
Art critic and academic Wystan Curnow talks about the artist,
whom he first knew as a family friend and whose work he
curated. Curnow will draw from research for a book he is writ-
ing about McCahon. On the same afternoon, a talk by John
Woolf looks at McCahon’s religious convictions.I AM 100
Events marking lauded New Zealand
modernist Colin McCahon’s centennial year.
Māori myth and legend: McCahon’s Urewera Triptych (1975).