Don Driver

Donald Sinclair Driver (1930–2011) was a New Zealand artist born in Hastings.[1] Driver was self-taught and worked in a variety of media including painting, sculpture, collage and assemblage. His work was often recognized for its use of everyday or vernacular materials.

Driver is associated with New Plymouth, having moved there with his family in 1944. He was educated at New Plymouth Boys’ High School and worked as a dental technician during the 1940s and 1950s before a lengthy period working at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (1969 to 1992). His 1966 mural commemorating the 1933 trans-Tasman flight of Charles Kingsford-Smith featured at New Plymouth airport from 1967 to 2019.[2] Driver's sculpture Cats was installed in New Plymouth's Pukekura Park during the 1960s. In 2013 a replica of the work was installed in its place.[3]

Driver's work often attracted controversy. In 1967 his sculpture Magician was removed from the New Plymouth public library one of the library committee complaining that, “the real trouble with the work is that it could not be ignored.”`[4] In 1981 the National Art Gallery in Wellington commissioned Driver to produce an installation. The resulting work, Ritual (1982), consists of ten 44-gallon drums topped by children's dolls with goat-skull heads holding pitchforks, all mounted on a cart. The work attracted criticism for its bad taste and embrace of the occult. In 1983 following its own display of the work, the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth tried to acquire Ritual for its collection. The acquisition proposal met stern opposition from civic council politicians who objected to the offensive nature of the work[5] and ultimately failed. Ritual was subsequently acquired in 1989 by the National Art Gallery (now the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa). At the time National Art Gallery curator Robert Leonard described Ritual as "one of the most controversial and despised works of New Zealand art history".[6]

In 2013 filmmakers Paul Judge and Bridget Sutherland produced the documentary Don Driver: Magician.[7]