In June 2008, it will be 50 years since the first Māori contemporary art exhibition was held in Auckland. The show was curated by Māori mentor and educator, Matiu Te Hau, and presented at the Continuing Education rooms, University of Auckland. The five artists in that original exhibition were Arnold Manaaki Wilson, Ralph Hotere, Muru Walters, Katerina Mataira and the late Selwyn Wilson.

Here is a review of the exhibition from The Auckland Star on June 10 1958.

Article and transcript Maori fullback goes in for abstract painting The Maori fullback, Muru Walters now in Australia, is an abstract painter. An even greater full back Bob Scott, was once a house painter and paperhanger and Fred Allen, who captained New Zealand teams, trained as a display artist, but Muru Walters' bent in painting is unique in All Black history. He is one of five Maoris – all art teachers in Northland schools - who have combined in the first Maori art exhibition seen in Auckland. An old pupil of Kaitaia College, Muru Walters did a three-year art course at the Auckland Teachers College before taking a job at Kaikohe as a travelling school art specialist. Two of the exhibitors, Selwyn Wilson and Arnold Wilson, are brothers. Selwyn Wilson attended the famour Slade School of Art in London. The other members of the group are Rau Hotere and Mrs Katerina Mataira who has three daughters and is an art teacher at Northland College, Kaikohe. Of the work in the exhibition the Auckland Star art critic H.M. says: Admittedly the show has crudities but throughout are the strong lines and sweeping rhythms, the gusto and the naivete, that stamped the workmanship of the exhibitors forbears. And as part of the new look is a play of colour, such as the old Maori did not know, and in the instance of Muru Walters, colour applied with fine perception. Of exceptional interest are Arnold Wilson's sculptures and carvings for he has applied the elements of ancient symbolism with modern conceptions of the timeless. Before leaving the intriguing show the viewer may well turn again to Mrs Mataira's sorrowing and Arab-like Christ. It has a haunting quality.

The upcoming exhibition Turuki Turuki! Paneke Paneke! is an anniversary exhibition that celebrates these five senior Māori artists.

I have started this forum to try and gather information about the people and culture of 1958.

Does anyone have any memory of the exhibition?
Does anyone have any information about any of the artists?
What was the art world like in 1958?

Comments 11
Last updated 23/07/2008
 

Comments: Arnold Wilson rang me to come and meet him when the pic of my paintings came out on the cover of the Taiawhio (TePaPa publication on Maori Artists) a book he was in. We talked about lots of things but a lot about the spiritual nature of Maori work, his and mine in particular. He told me I was a Matekite and had achieved in one painting what took a few years to teach his students. He also said my painting told him I was a matekite. I never told anyone this because I dont want to be a matekite. Arnold, if indicative of the old school contemporary artist aligns the spirit and soul with everything creative and I am now right there in agreement with him. My paintings are often prophetic and he told me they would be.

29/01/2008
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Comments: Tracey, nga mihi nui mo o korero mai i tou whatumanawa. Mihi mai, mihi atu. One of the joys of Arnold's ilk and generation, is the open & selfless way they pass on personal koha through whakaaro. That we get to experience their mentorship and insighfulness is even more special. Spirituality and Maori Ways of knowing are also some of the things he considers central in his practice... from the day he left the village of Ruatoki to today.

It is thrilling to me that Arnold and his contemporaries had the wherewithal to follow their passions and in the process, birth contemporary Maori Art. Hei whakaaro noa iho.

31/01/2008
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Comments: 1958 found Hawaii in the center of an Americanization thrust that was made confident with the 'win' in WWII. We here in the islands were one year away from the vote that would place us as the "50th" state of the United States. For Hawaiians it was an inward turning era where art expressed an idealized time in the islands captured and sterotyped by non-indigenous artists. My mom, Emma Akana Aluli, was an artists atypical of the times: she made our pottery dishes and mugs from a kick-wheel, and she brought sands from all parts of the islands to fill hotel rooms with her sand murals of our Hawaiian petroglyphs (kii pohaku). 1958 was a heady time with the lure of large-scale tourism. We are just now beginning to recover and to bear witness to the expressions of our true creativity found in our oli, chants, hula, bowls, carvings, lauhala weavings, kapa, feather-work, and all forms of stone work. This was the era where our 'crafts' were exposed to a wider audience, replicated in foreign countries and re-sold in our own. We are in a learning curve to understand this place we now find ourselves in with art and capitalism as kissing cousins. And because I still eat on the plates my mama fashioned from clay in 1959, there is hope that I can recover this sense of cultural efficacy that has been re-shaped and strengthened through the times. This exhibit to honor five of your Maori artist/educators is a timely event that we here in Hawaii are inspired by...our aloha is with you dear cousins! Our equivalent olelo no'eau/whakatauki: pupukahi i holomua - with one heart we move forward.  

1/02/2008
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10/02/2008
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12/02/2008
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14/02/2008
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Comments: Kia Ora Ngahiraka - unfortunatly I was not aware of the first exhibition of Contemporary Maori Art, although I worked nearby, in Symonds Street and did go to some evening lectures at the Art Gallery.

Mat Te Hau is a name that I recognise, for I think that he was deputy headmaster at Orakei School in my early years there, from mid 1943. He was impressive - always impeccably dressed and stood straight and firm, to the side of all the pupils as we assembled in the playground for the formalities of the school day, below the raised dias from where the headmaster addressed us. The New Zealand Flag was raised, we probably sang the National Anthem, listened to notices, then marched into class singing the Maori Battalion, because it was war time.

Mat Te Hau may have led boys in Maori activities, but I can't remember the details. I know that we played Maori stick games in one of our classes.

5/03/2008
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Comments: Dear Helen. Tena koe and thank you for your memory. I am hearing many wonderful stories about Matiu Te Hau and the one consistent thing is exactly what you describe... Matiu had a distinctive style and manner and impressed all that knew him, from children through to Prime Ministers. It is interesting to me that you marched into class singing the Maori Battalion song as Matiu served in the Battalion and was discharged in 1943. Imagine if that still happened today! Perhaps your school was the first one he taught at after he returned from Egypt in September of that year. Follow the link to the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography to read his bio.

http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/dnzb/

nga mihi nui, Ngahiraka

12/03/2008
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Comments: Kia Ora Ngahiraka..I have some questions.

What was the art world like in 1958? Being only 20 it is hard to imagine! Was having an exhibition of Maori art something of amazement at the time? And did the art have a certain Maori flavour? Or could it be seen as more of an attempt to blend Maori art and tradition with European styles of art? Do you think that these Maori artists helped pave the way for future Maori artists?

4/06/2008
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Comments: Kia ora Ngahiraka

I'm a moko of both Selywn and Arnold. My grandfather was Te Pere Davis, Uncle Selywn's oldest brother. I'm the oldest granddaughter of my Granpa's second family with Mereana Makene. My dad is Tupuna Davis. Ko Ngati Manu te hapu, no Karetu.

Arnold Wilson is married to Rangi, daughter of Pare (Polly), who is my nanny Mereana's oldest sister. Ko Kohatutaka te hapu, no Mangataipa. My Dad told me that Arnold Wilson lived for a time with my nanny and Granpa in Moerewa.

Imagine my surprise to open the Weekend Herald and see one of Uncle Selwyn's tino ataahui portraits in the paper. I rang my Dad straight away, to put the word out on the whanau kumara vine. My Uncle Sam (Boydie)Davis thinks that the girl in the portrait is one of the Hancey (sp?) whanau.

Also the ingoa "Noota" at the bottom LH corner was my great grandmother (Selwyn's mother) Kapu's middle name, and is a transliteration of "North Star" which in whanau history is the name of the ship that our Welsh ancestor Henry Davis came to Aotearoa on in the 1800s. I was wondering if Uncle Selwyn was using it as a psydonym?

My whanau are really interested in the exhibition, I'll be in touch to find out more.
Nga mihi nui, Louise

7/07/2008
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Comments:

I read with interest the Listener article about Turuki Turuki! Paneke Paneke! in part because I met four of the people whose work is featured.

I cannot remember meeting Ralph Hotere at Motukiore School where my father was the teacher and he was an art adviser but I did recognise him when I went to Northland College as a border in 1959. Ralph was based there and I remember we thought he looked pretty cool (though that was not a term we would have used then) in his bright red MG, scarf and cloth cap. It was of course at Northland College that I meet two of the others. I believe that one of the first Maori language courses in a state school was started by Katarina Mataira and that in 1960 my class was one of the guinea-pigs (it was all rather wasted on me as was the three years they tried to teach me French and two years Latin, I never passed an English exam). In my day if you were good at maths you were not able to do art and I was good at maths. I was not taught by Selwyn (Potty), but as I was hostel inmate and he a hostel master, I saw quite a bit of him. My strongest memory of him was that if one was very skilful one could sometimes divert him, at lights-out, to tell superstitious stories that we were never sure if he believed or not. My brother Malcolm and brother in-law Ken Adams were not good at maths and benefited a great deal from Selwyn's teaching. I visited Selwyn at his home in Taumarere, once with my parents and brother while still at school and his mother was alive and several times much later. When I started teaching in 1973, it was at Mt Albert Grammar and there I met Arnold Wilson, I much enjoyed his subversive sense of humour. Probably repeating the news paper error, he tried to tell me he and Selwyn were brothers, I knew better.

There is more point to this than name dropping. I have in my possession three sketches by Ralph Hotere, in and around Mangungu the site of the mission station just out of Horeke. They were proposals to illustrate my mother's School Journal "Te Tiriti O Waitangi" set at the signing of the treaty at Mangungu. They were rejected by School Publications and Ralph must have given them to my mother. I thought you may be interested to know of their existence and whereabouts.

     
Images courtesy of Duncan Ross

23/07/2008
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