Artwork Information

From sketches made in the Otira Gorge, Petrus van der Velden produced finished oil paintings in his Christchurch studio. His depictions of a wild hinterland of rushing water, dark rocks and swirling storm clouds are quite unlike the calm alpine vistas purveyed by an earlier generation of colonial artists. Van der Velden’s Otira images are the artist’s most original contribution to New Zealand art. (A Story of New Zealand Waterways, 2002)