Artwork information

Landscape, 1959, is part of a small set of four early paintings by then twenty-eight-year-old Ralph Hotere. The abstract painting reflects the International Modernist Style, and early abstract expressionism, which was very contemporary of a young Māori artist from the far north. Although visually separate from Māori art history, Hotere invests his painting with a heat infused, mesmeric northland landscape. Hotere was born in Mitimiti, on the Westcoast of Northland, this painting is more than likely drawn from his experiences of life there.

For Hotere, the 1950’s were a period of studied experimentation and exploration as an artist. He worked in woodcut where he included Māori patterns, still life and painted religious works after seeing an exhibition of Georges Rouault from his Miserere series at Auckland City Art Gallery. Expressionistic compositions, such as Landscape, 1959, are reflective of the far north, and carry over elements of the thick black lines seen in Renaults work, however, taking less than an hour on each piece, Hotere was on fire.

Hotere had three solo exhibitions at the Northland Society of Arts in Whangarei, 1958, 1959 and 1960, Landscape was purchased by Elizabeth Brain. Although there is no documentation of these exhibitions, artist Katarina Mataira wrote an article for Northland Magazine, how Hotere was moving between religious themes, to finally a small number of expressionistic landscapes of the far north.