Walking with McCahon

In 1984, on a trip to Sydney for the opening of a major retrospective exhibition of his work, Colin McCahon went missing. He was found by police early next morning in Centennial Park, kilometres away, with no memory of who he was or where he had been. They took him to St Vincent’s Hospital where he remained, his identity unknown, while the exhibition of his paintings opened elsewhere in the city.

In the newly released book, Dark Night: Walking with McCahon, Martin Edmond treads an imagined path searching not for authenticity but for Colin’s ‘dark night of the soul’. As he examines his own relationship with the art and the man and illuminates the life and work of our greatest 20th century painter, he takes a walk in McCahon’s footsteps past pubs and monuments, art galleries and churches, barracks and parks.

Martin and Peter Simpson, director of The Holloway Press at The University of Auckland, will discuss this journey into the night at the upcoming Going West Books and Writers festival literary weekend, Landfall in Unknown Seas.

Martin Edmond was born in Ohakune in 1952; grew up there and in Greytown, Huntly, Upper Hutt, Wellington and Auckland. He was with Red Mole Theatre from 1974-1980 and then in 1981 settled in Sydney, where he still lives. Martin has written half a dozen films and a dozen and a half books. Currently enrolled for a Doctorate of Creative Arts at the University of Western Sydney, his dissertation is a biographical inquiry into the lives and works of watercolour painters Rex Battarbee and Albert Namatjira.

Peter Simpson marks 2011 as the culmination of years of research into artist and printer Leo Bensemann (1912-86).

Leo Bensemann: A Fantastic Art Venture at Christchurch Art Gallery was barely on the walls when the 22 February earthquake happened and the show was cancelled. His book Fantastica: The World of Leo Bensemann (AUP) was published in February and has been favourably reviewed. Dark Arts: Notes on Printing, Publishing and Painting by Leo Bensemann (Holloway Press, edited and introduced by Peter) is just out.