Artwork information

Malcolm Ross grew up in the Hokianga where he developed an interest in history, Māoritanga, as well as his early gift for visual thinking. Encouraged by art teacher Selwyn Wilson, he enrolled at Elam School of Fine Arts in 1966, studying under Colin McCahon before working at the newly opened Govett-Brewster Art Gallery. Ross returned to Elam in 1971 to complete an honours diploma in sculpture under Jim Allen, earning the Fowlds Memorial Prize.

Among his early works, the painting Cubist Cowboy Shootout, ca. 1980, reveals the artist's appropriation of a seminal art movement, which he redeploys with knowing effect. Cubism upended centuries of pictorial convention and presented a modern account of perception that aligned with new theories of time and space. In the painting, two male figures dance within a field of fractured, cubist planes, with powerlines, boots, and blades of grass just visible amongst the chaos of shapes. Curator Ron Brownson called it 'one of Malcolm Ross's most amusing paintings,' reading the gunfight as a tender dance of male attraction between the choreographer and dancer Douglas Wright and Ross himself. Brownson described it as 'a love letter to Douglas Wright,' linking it to a similar tribute Ross had painted for dancer Mark Baldwin.