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Kā Kōrero o Waikirikiri Selwyn Stories

Artists and our landscape

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NameArtists and our landscapeDescriptionThe landscape of the Selwyn District, with its towering mountains, braided rivers and winding roads have been long been a source of inspiration for artists. In January 1891 Petrus van der Velden made his first trip to Otira Gorge, to capture the brooding landscape of this area. Other artists like, John Barr Clark Hoyte, took a more quixotic view of the landscape. His stylised painting Punchbowl Falls in Arthur’s Pass was done in 1875 with an unrecognisable landscape in the foreground. Grace Butler was well-known for her alpine scenes. Many of her landscapes were of the area around Otira. She first travelled to the region in 1916 and then visited regularly after she and her husband bought a cabin at Arthur’s Pass. She was a devotee of the en plein air method of painting and often worked in dreadful conditions at remote sites. Her landscapes, such as the Summertime Arthur’s Pass, c 1945, shows off her great skill with connecting light to tone and colour. Fellow artist Margaret Olrog Stoddart was also fascinated with the area, painting An Otira Stream in 1927. From around the 1930s, a number of artists began painting the Canterbury High Country, most famously Rita Angus and her landscape painting of the railway station at Cass. Others included Leo Bensemann, Louise Henderson, Rata Lovell-Smith and Bill Sutton. In a major departure from the misty romanticism of painters past, this new generation of artists created works that were clear and hard, the colours in flat planes. A keen mountaineer, Austen Deans work was strongly focused on the Canterbury landscape, and is most known for his paintings of Mt Peel and the surrounding area where he lived and worked for over 60 years. Deans excelled at the watercolour medium, combining his love of tramping and en plein air painting to produce some outstanding views of the Canterbury High Country. 'It was really my attraction to the mountains that started me painting' he said, 'and it's never left me'. In the 60s, Colin Wheeler set out on an epic journey around New Zealand to capture the back country in a series of paintings and drawings. Historic Sheep Stations of the New Zealand features Coleridge and Grasmere stations. His delightful vignettes contrast scenes from the cookhouse, and woolshed with the grandeur of the mountainous landscape. Long after Rita Angus’ iconic painting of the small railway shed at Cass, our photographer brings the subject firmly into the present with a contemporary photograph. By now the station had been repainted in its original red colour – but still undeniably the same landmark.

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Rita Angus, Cass, 1936

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CollectionArt in our CommunityPersonGrace Butler

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Artists and our landscape