The last post had bush paintings that relate to my growing up in Australia. But I love Aotearoa New Zealand — where I have spent most of my life. The bush is different. If you have a big screen click this painting by Toss Woolaston.
More from Woolaston in the Gallery that follows.
From the Christchurch Art Gallery:
Sir Tosswill Woollaston has been painting for sixty years and is regarded as one of the founders of modern art in New Zealand, and part of the 1930s generation of artists and writers who strove to emancipate their culture from its paternalistic dependence on Britain.
Woollaston has taken an independent path throughout his career and remained largely indifferent to the stylistic vagaries of late twentieth century painting. Through his paintings, Woollaston celebrates the physical nature of the world as he finds it. The disfigured, the eroded, even the “ugly” are never discounted in favour of the picturesque. Our experience of familiar natural and human landscapes is transfigured by Woollaston’s art.
As well as being historically important in the development of New Zealand art, Woollaston is among this country’s best known contemporary painters. His works are included in the permanent collections of every major art museum in New Zealand and found amongst major corporate collections such as the Bank of New Zealand, Fletcher Challenge and Electricorp. He is the only person in this country to have been honoured with a Knighthood for services to painting.
Toss Woollaston: A Retrospective is being toured by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and the Bank of New Zealand.