Listing Details
Gordon Walters (1919 – 1994)
Wellington born and based Gordon Walters was an artist and graphic designer who achieved acclaim for his abstract works.
Walters studied at commercial art at Wellington Technical College from 1935 – 1939. When war broke-out he tried to enlist but was rejected for medical reasons and spent the period instead doing illustrations for the Ministry of Supply.
In 1946 he visited his friend and fellow artist Theo Schoon in South Canterbury. Together they explored various cave locations on the Opihi River studying the traditional Maori rock art drawings te area is famous for. From this point Walters work became influenced by Maori cultural themes. A prolonged trip to Europe from 1950 – 1953 introduced him to abstract modernist paintings and on his return to New Zealand his work became derivative of both Maori Culture icons and abstract expressionism. In the Te Whiti series his design straightened the stem of the Koru in a way nor previously seen.
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.”
Remarks: Reproduction print - Reproduced by Courtesy of the Victoria University of Wellington.
Image Dimensions: 520mm W x 380mm H
Framing: Framed
Framed Dimensions: 850mm W x 750mm H
