Matariki and Maori Modernism

To celebrate Matariki the Whangarei Art Museum presents concurrently with its present Wairua Wai - Spirit of the Water collection show, a further exhibition to showcase the artists of Te Tai Tokerau and the Northern Maori Project of the 1950's.

Matariki and Maori Modernism will feature a significant Ralph Hotere painting from his Northland Period before leaving to study in Europe. 'Three Vessels' is from a local family collection and has not been shown publically since its purchase in the 1950's.

This historically significant still life study is clearly related to the 'Gourds' painting in the Northland Society of Arts Collection at Reyburn House where Hotere and other artists from the Northern Maori Project such as Arnold Manaaki Wilson and Muru Walters also exhibited at the time.

The exhibition will also include other related works by Ralph Patiti Hotere, Selwyn Ngareata Wilson, Katerina Mataira, Pauline Kahurangi Yearbury, Marilyn Webb, Selwyn Muru, Paratene Matchitt, Shane Cotton and Buck Nin from the art museum collection.

The 1950's-80's were a remarkable period of creativity for contemporary maori art. This was to become a movement now known as the 'Maori Renaissance' tracing its lineage directly to the Tovey Scheme - Northern Maori Project piloted by the Department of Education here in Te Tai Tokerau, and those pioneering young maori from the North like Selwyn Wilson and Ralph Hotere who first enrolled in the pakeha bastion of Elam School of Arts in Auckland in the 1950's.

Matariki and Maori Modernism
the wellspring of a contemporary maori art 1950-2000
Exhibition 1 June - 30 June 2010