Cliff Whiting

Name
Cliff Whiting
Iwi/Ethnicity
Te Whānau-ā-Apanui/Māori
Date of birth
06 May 1936
Place of birth
Te Kaha/Bay of Plenty (region)/New Zealand
Date of death
16 Jul 2017
Place of death
Whangarei/Northland (region)/New Zealand
Gender
Male
Biography
Cliff Whiting was raised in Te Kaha, Bay of Plenty, where he lived until enrolling at Wellington Teachers’ College in 1955. Whiting spent his final year of study in Ōtepoti/Dunedin, training to become a specialist in the arts.

In the 1960s, Whiting and other young Māori artists were invited by Gordon Tovey, the national arts and crafts adviser, to participate in a series of courses with Ngāti Porou arts, including tohunga whakairo (master carver) Pineāmine Taiapa. Under Taiapa’s guidance, Whiting began restoring and building marae. Over the next 50 years, he would develop a kaupapa Māori approach to heritage preservation, with a focus on community and whakapapa, restoring and building marae around the country.

Whiting held a number of significant governance roles, including on the Council for Māori and Pacific Arts, the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council, and the Historic Places Trust. In 1995, he was appointed the first kaihautū (Māori leader) of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.