Gordon Walters

Gordon Frederick Walters (24 September 1919 – 5 November 1995) was a Wellington-born artist and graphic designer who is significant to New Zealand culture due to his representation of New Zealand in his Modern Abstract artworks.^[1]

Gordon Walters
Born	(1919-09-24)24 September 1919
Died	5 November 1995(1995-11-05) (aged 76)
Nationality	New Zealand
Style	Modern abstract
Spouse	Margaret Orbell

Education

Gordon Walters was born and raised in Wellington, where he went to Miramar South School and Rongotai College. From 1935 to 1939 he studied as a commercial artist at Wellington Technical College under Frederick V. Ellis.

Early influence and experiences

Walters applied to join the army during World War II but was turned down due to medical problems.^[2] He took up a job in the Ministry of Supply doing illustrations. Walters traveled to Australia in 1946 and then visited photographer and painter Theo Schoon in South Canterbury, who was photographing Māori rock art at Ōpihi River. This visit was central to Walters work as he began using Māori cultural themes in his painting.^[3] In 1950 Walters moved to Europe where he became influenced by Piet Mondrian, Victor Vasarely and Auguste Herbin. On his return to New Zealand in 1953, Walters began to fuse abstract modernism with traditional Māori art.

The koru series

In the early fifties Walters' designs progressed and New Zealand shapes and ideas, in particular the Māori koru form, became important themes. His design straightened the stem of the koru in a way not seen in customary Māori contexts.^[4] Walters stated “My work is an investigation of positive/ negative relationships within a deliberately limited range of forms; the forms I use have no descriptive value in themselves and are used solely to demonstrate relations. I believe that dynamic relations are most clearly expressed by the repetition of a few simple elements.”^[5]

Te Whiti

In 1956 Walters made the initial studies for the painting that would become his first koru painting, Te Whiti.^[6] As art historian Michael Dunn noted, ‘Perfecting that motif took some eight years of dedicated labour.’^[7] In 1964 Walters made the first large scale (1220 x 915mm) koru painting that has survived. It was titled after the Māori spiritual leader Te Whiti-o-Rongomai (Te Āti Awa) and may also reference Te Whiti Street in Kilbirnie Wellington where Walters lived as a child.^[8] Some critics have found this possible personal reference to be at odds with Walters’ insistence on the works being seen as purely abstract.^[9] For Te Whiti Walters used hardboard and a co polymer of PVA. Now known as acrylic, this material was relatively new at the time. Although available for house painting in New Zealand as early as 1952, there is no public record of its use by artists until 1962.^[10]

Te Whiti was not included in the New Vision Gallery exhibition Gordon Walters: Painting 1965 and Walters submitted it instead to the Hays Ltd Art Competition as Painting 1965.^[11] Since the return of the work from the Hays Competition the painting has been known as Te Whiti and it is this title that is inscribed on the back of the painting along with the year 1964 and the artist’s name.^[12]

Te Whiti has been owned privately since 1966 and has been exhibited on only a few occasions. A year after the Hays Competition it was shown in Wellington as Te Whiti in the exhibition Abstract Paintings by Forty New Zealand Artists, Wellington Art Club, New Zealand Display Centre, Wellington. At that stage it was owned by Ralph S. Von Kohorn.^[13][14] In 1983 Te Whiti was included in Gordon Walters Auckland City Art Gallery (now known as Auckland Art Gallery / Toi o Tāmaki). The City Gallery Wellington included the painting in the 2001 Parihaka: the Art of Resistance.^[15] It was last exhibited publicly in 2017 in Gordon Walters: New Vision, Dunedin Public Art Gallery and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki.^[16]

In 2023 the Walters Estate published an edition of 100 screen prints of Te Whiti embossed with the Estate’s blind stamp.^[17] In the same year, to coincide with the publication of Francis Pound's book Gordon Walters, Glorious  Digital^[18] produced a digital version of Te Whiti in an edition of 100. The package included the digital reproduction of the work, Francis Pound’s book (a detail from Te Whiti features on the cover) and a small, printed version of the painting.^[19]

Maheno

Walters' best known work, Maheno,^[20] was painted in 1981 and formed part of an ongoing koru series. The painting brings both Māori and European ideas together through geometric abstraction and Māori culture expressed through both image and language with the koru and the title 'Maheno' in Māori. Koru is a Māori word that has now become part of mainstream New Zealand English, describing the growing tip of a fern frond.

Controversy

From the mid-1980s, Walters was accused of exploitative appropriation of Māori art by several critics, both Māori and Pākehā (European New Zealander).^[21] The discussion around Walters' appropriation of Maori forms surfaced again in the early nineties when his work was included in the exhibition Headlands: Thinking Through New Zealand Art in 1992.^[22]

Personal life

Walters became a full-time artist in 1966 and in 1971 was awarded a QEII Fellowship. Recognised for his precise geometric abstraction, he moved to Christchurch in 1976.

Walters married Margaret Orbell (1934–2006), a scholar of Māori literature, in 1963.^[23]

Gordon Walters died on 5 November, 1995, aged 76.

References

1. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (2005). Treasures from the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Te Papa Press. p. 66. ISBN 1-877385-12-3.
2. Dunn, Michael (2000). "Walters, Gordon Frederick". Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 18 June 2019.
3. Lummis, Richard (Winter 2000). "Embryonic Ultra-Modernism: Walters, Schoon and Turner in the 1940s". Art New Zealand (95): 88–91, 98.
4. "Makaro by Gordon Walters".
5. Dunn, Michael (February 1978). "The Enigma of Gordon Walters' Art". Art New Zealand (9).
6. Bell, Leonard (Winter 1983). "Putting the Record Straight: Gordon Walters". Art New Zealand. 27: 45.
7. Dunn, Michael (March 1978). "The Enigma of Gordon Walter's Art". Art New Zealand. 9.
8. "Walters Labels" (PDF). Retrieved 17 December 2023.
9. Philip, Brendan Jon (16 January 2018). "Difference and Repetition". EyeContact. Retrieved 17 December 2023.
10. Hillary, Sarah; Campbell, Katherine; Carlisle, Melanie; Khanjian, Herant; Learner, Tom; Schilling, Michael (2013). "The early use of synthetic emulsion paints by New Zealand artists". AICCM Bulletin. 48 (54).
11. "Hays Art Competition 1966". Retrieved 17 December 2023.
12. Dunn, Michael (1983). Dunn Gordon Walters. Auckland City Art Gallery. p. 37. ISBN 0864631111.
13. "Abstract Paintings by Forty New Zealand Artists". Retrieved 17 December 2023.
14. Pound, Francis (1994). The Spaces Between: Pākehā Use of Māori Motifs in Modernist New Zealand Art. Workshop Press. p. 221. ISBN 0958331219.
15. "Parihaka: The Art of Passive Resistance". Retrieved 17 December 2023.
16. "Gordon Walters". Retrieved 17 December 2023.
17. "Gordon Walters Estate". Retrieved 17 December 2023.
18. "Glorious Digital". Retrieved 17 December 2023.
19. "Gordon Walters: Te Whiti". Retrieved 17 December 2023.
20. "Maheno". Retrieved 18 December 2023.
21. "International Review: Gordon Walters: New Vision by Leonard Bell". 6 December 2018.
22. Headlands : thinking through New Zealand art. Robert Leonard, Bernice Murphy, Mary Barr, John McCormack, Cheryll Sotheran, Cliff Whiting, Museum of Contemporary Art, National Art Gallery, Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council of New Zealand, Council for Maori and South Pacific Arts, Australia Council. Visual Arts/Craft Board. Sydney [N.S.W.]: The Museum. 1992. pp. 130–132. ISBN 1-875632-04-2. OCLC 30605052.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
23. "Maho: The painting Gordon Walters wouldn't sell". 11 August 2018.

External links

• Works by Gordon Walters at Te Papa
• Works by Gordon Walters at the Auckland Art Gallery
• Victoria University: Gordon Walters Prints + Design
• Dunn, Michael. "Gordon Frederick Walters". Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Retrieved 23 April 2017.