1 NEWTON I, 1960–64 In 1960 McCahon and his family moved from Titirangi to the inner- city suburb of Newton, in those days a predominantly working-class and Polynesian neighbourhood. The award of the first Hay’s Art Prize to McCahon for Painting (1958), a radical abstract, caused a furore in newspapers and much unwelcome negative publicity for the artist. After a year of little painting, he embarked on the Gate series (including Here I give thanks to Mondrian, p. 10), an important new series of geometrical abstractions, exhibited at The Gallery (Symonds Street, Auckland) in 1961; a further extension of the series was the sixteen-panel The Second Gate Series (1962, pp. 51–53), a collaboration with John Caselberg (who supplied the Old Testament texts) which addressed the threat of nuclear annihilation; it was exhibited in Christchurch with other work in 1962. Lack of critical enthusiasm for this abstract/text work led McCahon to reconsider his direction, resulting in a ‘return’ (his word) to landscape painting in a large open Northland series (1962, p. 33, 59) and Landscape theme and variations (1963, pp. 60–61), two eight- panel series, exhibited at The Gallery simultaneously with a joint Woollaston/McCahon retrospective at Auckland City Art Gallery. In 1964, after twelve years at Auckland City Art Gallery, McCahon resigned to join the staff of Auckland University’s Elam School of Fine Arts, where he taught from 1964 to 1971. His first exhibition after joining Elam, Small Landscapes and Waterfalls (Ikon Fine Arts, 1964), proved to be both aesthetically and commercially successful. 10 Partridge Street The McCahons’ move from Titirangi to inner-city Auckland in Colin McCahon helping to install Jacob Epstein’s March 1960 was welcomed by the whole family. Colin told O’Reilly: bronze Rock Drill (1913–16) at Auckland City Art Gallery, 1961. E. H. McCormick Research Library, Auckland Art Gallery Anne and all well & flourishing and all pleased to be Toi o Tāmaki, Colin McCahon Artist File in town after so long in the bush. No doubt will miss 21 the beach & bush in the summer but there will still be and Russell Clark from the University of Canterbury School of compensations. Fine Arts and Peter Tomory from Auckland City Art Gallery, could We are right in the middle of a Maori & Islander not agree on a winner and awarded the prize equally to Julian district – lots of people & activity & a lovely view of Mt Royds for Composition (‘a reddish Gothic interior extravaganza’, Eden (the mountain not the other thing).1 according to one review),5 Francis L. Jones for Kanieri Gold Dredge (a naïve representational work), and McCahon’s Painting (1958; see The ‘other thing’ was Mount Eden Prison. Prior to later Volume One, p. 268) – Tomory’s choice – works as different from ‘gentrification’, Newton and nearby Grey Lynn were working-class each other as the proverbial chalk and cheese. But it was McCahon’s and student neighbourhoods with a large Polynesian population work which caused the controversy. J. N. K. (Nelson Kenny), an which McCahon actively enjoyed. Number 10 Partridge Street able critic, said of it: ‘It is not a picture of anything. It is not meant was a small villa on the Arch Hill side of Newton Gully close to to be anything but what it is. It is simply a surface covered with paint Newton Central School. The house was compulsorily acquired and of different tones and colours – as ultimately is any painting – and demolished in the 1970s for the school’s expansion. The McCahons it must be looked at with this in mind if its stark austerity is to be moved to 106 Crummer Road in Grey Lynn in December 1976. appreciated.’6 Newspapers around the country, however, published Writing about Here I give thanks to Mondrian (1961), an early sneering attacks on both painting and painter. McCahon wrote Partridge Street painting, McCahon commented: bitterly to Brasch: ‘I have about 100 quite devastating cuttings from all over N.Z. which I am keeping for when I eventually manage The painting reflects the change I felt in moving from to leave N.Z. for good – to remind me in times of homesickness Titirangi with its thick native bush and the view of of what to expect should I return. (The Auckland Star reproduced French Bay to that of the urban environment. This picture the picture on its side.)’7 This ugly brouhaha interfered with belongs to a whole lot of paintings that were, believe it or his painting: ‘No painting to report[;] am having a long dry spell. not, based on the landscape I saw through the bedroom For the first time ever I have been really depressed with constant window. This also applies to the Gate paintings . .2 bad reviews.’8 Alarmed by McCahon’s talk of wanting to leave the country, Before the Gate series arrived, however, McCahon experienced one Brasch wrote a long, sympathetic reply, imploring him to ignore of those unproductive spells which occurred when he moved to a newspaper criticism: ‘It’s worthless, nearly all of it, as you know. new place. He told O’Reilly: ‘Have had one of those periods when I agree it’s infinitely depressing to read, and hurtful when you’re I couldn’t break through at all.’3 The Online Catalogue lists only a consistently misunderstood, misrepresented, sneered at. But, Colin, handful of works for 1960. you must realise that in spite of it you have a large following and a As always, McCahon was very busy at Auckland City Art reputation second to none.’ He was sceptical about the likelihood of Gallery, in his role as keeper and deputy director, mostly organising McCahon’s succeeding abroad: ‘Will you really do better in another exhibitions such as the first of a historically important annual country (where – England? America?), as one among many, most of series of touring shows, Contemporary New Zealand Painting and them better known and better established?’ Furthermore, ‘are you Sculpture (1960). McCahon was represented by six works from sure that you’d be able to paint in another country, do you realize 1959, including Cross and four Elias paintings. He was excited about how your work grows out of N.Z.?’ He concluded: ‘I should hate the exhibition, telling O’Reilly that it completely outclassed the this country to lose you . Although I can’t always follow you, gallery’s Auckland Festival show: ‘. a huge Australian exhibition you’re still the first N.Z. painter to me’.9 McCahon was appreciative which sadly flopped – but rightly – it followed immediately on our of such caring concern: ‘Thank you for your kindly & reassuring Contemporary N.Z. ex. and just didn’t measure up . This was letter. I most certainly would be off tomorrow if I could but as you (with the N.Z. show) the first time some real pride and enthusiasm know am so well tied down I must remain here for years to come.’10 seemed to develop around N.Z. painting.’4 This positive mood was Troubled by the buckets of disparaging criticism being dumped sustained through the 1960s, especially in Auckland. on his friend, Woollaston published an impressive defence of the derided painting in the Press. He began: ‘In view of the unpleasant Hay’s Art Competition, 1960 nature of much of the criticism Colin McCahon’s “Painting” During 1960 McCahon was at the centre of a newspaper furore when has received, I feel the need to make some amends to the artist his Painting (1958) was made a joint winner of the first Hay’s Art concerned’. After seven detailed paragraphs describing the forms, Competition award in Christchurch. Three judges, John Simpson structure and colour of the painting, he continued: 22 I would say that, if the picture has a subject, a ‘meaning’ as people like to say, it would be of such a kind as to make necessary the extreme abstinence from representation that we find in it. It is too close to the unutterable for easy verbal communication: its subject is too disconcerting to allow many people to indulge in the easy response of ‘I like it’, which unfortunately is all that most people will allow of themselves for painting.11 McCahon was grateful: ‘But thank you for the words on “Painting” . No, I object to nothing there. I just wish it wasn’t necessary for these things to happen at all and am certainly glad I’m not in Chch . New paintings are much more difficult. The citizens of Chch are lucky they can’t see these ones.’12 By then the dry spell was over and he was hard at work on the highly innovative Gate series. The controversy about Painting (1958) expanded when William Baverstock, the ultra-reactionary director of the McDougall Art Gallery (already notorious for his role – as Canterbury Society of Arts (CSA) secretary – in the Pleasure Garden affair in 1948), successfully advised the City Council not to accept the donation by Hay’s Ltd of any of the winners, especially McCahon’s, on the grounds that it was ‘not art but the negation of art’, a decision loudly condemned by the art community in Christchurch, including W. A. Sutton, Doris Lusk, Leo Bensemann, John Coley and E. N. (Ted) Bracey, who all wrote letters to the Press. Bensemann pointedly contrasted the Auckland City Art Gallery’s role as a ‘vital force in the art affairs of this country’ with the McDougall’s moribund status.13 The Gate series By March 1961 McCahon had finally moved on, telling Caselberg about ‘the stream of present painting which is happening again at last’.14 Caselberg – who had recently married seventeen-year-old Anna Woollaston in Auckland – was awarded the Burns Fellowship at Otago University for 1961; he planned to write a large sequence of verse plays about early New Zealand history and race conflict; for years he involved McCahon – as an experienced theatre person – in lengthy communications about them.