Maori Village, Waikato
Maker
Frank Wright
Production date
Unknown
Description
This scene was a common subject during Frank Wright’s trips to the Waikato. Depicting a pastoral Maori scene, this work is reminescent of English landscapes of the period which romanticised country life that was in danger of disappearing due to industrial development. Painted in watercolours, this work clearly demonstrates the skill Wright had with this difficult medium.
Frank Wright (1860–1923), along with his brother Walter, came to Auckland from Nottinghamshire, with their mother in 1877. Although he initially worked as a furniture packer, Frank was, alongside his brother, a quiet, somewhat shy gentleman who was determined to make a living through art. Subsequently the two brothers became professional painters, selling works to tourists and teaching classes of young women. While exhibiting regularly for many years in the Auckland Society of Arts, their paintings were shown alongside luminaries such as Goldie, Frances Hodgkins and John Weeks. Both brothers were keen landscape photographers who used such images to plan the paintings they made in their studios. In 1908 they published ‘New Zealand’, a book of 75 colour reproductions with a text by William Pember Reeves, and their watercolours were included in the publication ‘Oceania’.
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Object detail
253 x 363mm (image)
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