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
Died5 November 1995(1995-11-05) (aged 76)
NationalityNew Zealand
StyleModern abstract
SpouseMargaret 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 Opihi River. This visit was central to Walters work as he began using Māori cultural themes in his painting. 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

Walters' designs progressed and New Zealand shapes and ideas were important themes. The geometric spiral form of the koru began appearing consistently in his work from the late 1950s the first full-scale koru painting being Te Whiti first exhibited in 1966.[3] 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] From the mid-1980s, Walters was accused of exploitative appropriation of Māori art by several critics, both Māori and Pākehā (European New Zealander).[6] 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.[7]

Walters' best known work, Maheno, 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.

Personal life

Walters became a fulltime 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.[8]

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. Dunn, Michael (1983). Gordon Walters. Auckland: Auckland City Art Gallery. p. 26. ISBN 0864631111.
  4. "Makaro by Gordon Walters".
  5. Dunn, Michael (February 1978). "The Enigma of Gordon Walters' Art". Art New Zealand (9).
  6. "International Review: Gordon Walters: New Vision by Leonard Bell". 6 December 2018.
  7. 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)
  8. "Maho: The painting Gordon Walters wouldn't sell". 11 August 2018.

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