Kia haere mai, te atakura, he tio, he huka, he hauunga
Let the red-tipped dawn come with the sharpened air, a touch of frost and the promise of a glorious day…
In May this year, leading Māori artist Fred Graham was lost to us. He was a central figure in the development of contemporary Māori art and its recognition as an important strand of contemporary art within New Zealand art history. The whakataukī at the beginning of this text is used allegorically in acknowledgement of the legacy left for us by Fred Graham. An Inheritance for us to be inspired by and to aspire to.
Pioneering Māori artist
Fred Graham was born in 1928 and is of Ngāti Korokī Kahukura and Tainui descent. He was one of a small group of pioneering Māori artists who were working in New Zealand between the 1930s and the mid-1970s and who have become known, in recent years, as the Māori modernists. Primarily painters, sculptors, and printmakers, but also including photography, ceramics, and architecture, they were artists who intentionally distanced themselves from customary Māori art forms and instead explored the styles and techniques of international modern art.
The Māori modernists
The Māori modernists created work that combined Māori ideas, cultural philosophies, and sometimes, Māori visual forms with European and American modernism and drew inspiration from international modern artists, including Pablo Picasso, Constantin Brancusi, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Jean Arp, Kazimir Malevich, Ad Reinhart, Alice Aycock, and Mary Miss, to name only a few. Avant-garde in their approach, the Māori modernists were not focused on reinterpreting customary or ‘classical’ Māori art for the modern age, nor was their work intended to supersede the significance of the whare whakairo, where many expressions of Māori art can be experienced. Their work was instead created as ‘art’, for a Western art context and for contemporary art audiences. Modernism provided Māori artists with a means ‘to negotiate the contemporary world in which they lived and supported their aspirations to be … as good as, as modernist as, the best contemporary art being made in Aotearoa during the period.’[1]
Art educator as well as artist
As well as being an artist, Graham was an art educator. He trained as a teacher at Hamilton Technical College and Admore Teachers Training College in Auckland. From 1951, he was employed as a specialist Māori art and craft adviser under the direction of visionary educationalist Gordon Tovey (1901–74) and Tohunga Whakairo, Pineamine Taiapa (1901-72). Although primarily a sculptor, Graham also painted. He has two notable paintings, Whiti Te Ra (1966) and Te Ika a Maui (1970), held in the Toi o Tamaki, Auckland Art Gallery collection and had an established drawing practice, which he used to create illustrations and cartoons for the Manawatu Times.
Primarily a sculptor
Graham began making sculptures mainly in wood in 1962. As his sculptural practice developed, he began working in a range of mediums, making his decision about which materials to use based on ‘… the demands of the commission’.[2] His choice of materials, such as copper or stainless steel for his public sculptures, was also employed to ensure he was seen as a sculptor as opposed to a carver. Graham was not keen, he said, on customary Māori carving being his form of artistic expression, preferring to be recognised as a sculptor. He did, though, cite his uncle, Tohunga Whakairo, Waka Kereama, as a key influence on his practice alongside artists like New Zealand sculptor Jim Allen. Graham’s first solo exhibition was held in Auckland in 1969.
Bird Forms
As a working artist with a family, his sculptures were often created as commissions rather than purely for exhibition. His work regularly featured bird forms, sometimes as metaphors for people, human behaviours or for articulating environmental concerns. Many of his public sculptures can be seen in Auckland. They include Kaitiaki (2004) in Pukekawa, the Auckland Domain, a giant abstracted flying bird that operates as a kaitiaki or guardian of the land, Manurewa (2007) – a bird in flight that is installed high in the air in Mission Bay in Auckland and Kaitiaki II (2009) – a more abstract form, that sits outside of the Bank of New Zealand in Queen Street, Auckland.
Heartfelt condolences
Graham was an extraordinary artist and man. He is acknowledged for his work as one of the founders of the contemporary Māori art movement and for his contribution to modern Māori art, but like many of the Māori artists of his generation, I feel not enough was done to acknowledge his significance in his lifetime, and we, rather than he, are the poorer for that. E ngākau aroha ana, kua haere ia ki tōna moenga roa. My aroha and deep respect to Fred Graham and his family.
Recently, Fred Graham’s sculpture Ohorere was installed in Mana Whenua on Level 4 in acknowledgement of his passing earlier this year.
References
[1] Nicholas, Darcy and Kaa, Keri, Erenora Puketapu-Hetet, Te Atiawa, interview by Darcy Nicholas, Seven Māori Artists, Government Printing Office, Wellington,1986, p.42
[2] Skinner, Damian, Modern Trends in Māori Art Forms, Māori Modernism, 1950–1970, The Carver and the Artist: Māori Art in the Twentieth Century, Auckland University Press, Auckland, 2008, p.80
[3] Nicholas, Darcy and Kaa, Keri, Fred Graham, interview by Darcy Nicholas, Seven Māori Artists, Government Printing Office, Wellington,1986, p.22
