Two Hundred Years of New Zealand Painting - With Additions covering 1970-1990

Published by David Bateman Ltd., 1990.
Good secondhand condition. Faded dust-jacket.

This landmark book on New Zealand artists and their work, first published in 1971, has been extended to 1990 by art historian Michael Dunn. Twenty-three recent artists and their work have been added, covering Neo-expressionism, Abstractionism, New Realism, Maori and Polynesian painting, and Postmodernism. The book is thus brought completely up to date, with late 1980s and even 1990 paintings by Richard Killeen, Tony Fomison, Ian Scott, Philip Clairmont, Philippa Blair, Robin White, Kura Rewiti-Thorsen, and many others.
The original text by Gil Docking, former director of the Auckland City Art Gallery, covers the period the period from European discovery up until 1969, and is presented in its completely original form. Beginning with Sydney Parkinson's 1769 pen-and-wash study of 'A Perforated Rock', made off Tologa Bay during Cook's first voyage of discovery, the text moves through four main periods, beginning with that of Exploration, during which British and French painters of varying skill recorded what they saw during brief visits. The Settlement period follows, beginning with Augustus Earle (1793-1838) and ending with J.B.C. Hoyte (1835-1913), during which the young nation's painters were all European-born and saw the country as a new and quite unfamiliar land. The period of Transition covers the 1870s to the 1920s, beginning with W.M. Hodgkins (1833-98), who arrived in Dunedin from England in 1860. This, the fromative era of New Zealand painting, includes the first generation of artists to be born and brought up in the country. The fourth period, described under the heading of New Impulses, begins with Lois White (b. 1903) and takes the reader up to 1969, at which point Dr. Dunn's narrative takes over to complete the picture through the 1970s and 1980s. In total, this new edition features more than 170 paintings, with more than 90 presented in colour. These have been selected to complement the narrative and so are closely integrated wth the text. The result is a study of surpassing interest not only to students of New Zealand's art history and those who appreciated fine painting, but also to all who recognise the importance of of a nation's development through its art...