39 Facts About Colin McCahon

Colin John McCahon was a prominent New Zealand artist whose work over 45 years consisted of various styles, including landscape, figuration, abstraction, and the overlay of painted text.

Colin McCahon is regarded as New Zealand's most important modern artist, particularly in his landscape work.

Colin McCahon was born in Timaru on 1 August 1919 the second of three children of Ethel Beatrice Ferrier and her husband John Kernohan Colin McCahon.

Colin McCahon spent most of his childhood in Dunedin, although his family lived in Oamaru for one year.

Colin McCahon showed an early interest in art, influenced by regular visits to exhibitions and the work of his maternal grandfather, photographer and painter William Ferrier, which hung in the family home.

Colin McCahon attended the Maori Hill Primary School and Otago Boys' High School, which he called: "the most unforgettable horror of my youth".

At the age of 14, convinced he wanted to be an artist, Colin McCahon took Russell Clark's Saturday-morning art classes to learn the fundamental skills of painting.

Colin McCahon later attended the Dunedin School of Art from 1937 to 1939, where his teacher Robert Nettleton Field proved to be an inspirational influence.

Colin McCahon first exhibited his work at the Otago Art Society in 1939.

Colin McCahon's painting Harbour Cone from Peggy's Hill was considered too abstract and was excluded from the Otago Art Society's exhibition, despite a rule entitling each member to submit one work.

Colin McCahon supported himself in the late 1930s with a stint of working in a touring variety show, stage scenery painting, and fruit picking.

Colin McCahon was rejected from active service due to an enlarged heart.

Colin McCahon became a member of The Group in 1947 and contributed work regularly until its demise in 1977.

Between 1940 and 1950, Colin McCahon was commissioned by the Department of Education to produce an illustration for the New Zealand School Journal.

Colin McCahon married fellow artist Anne Hamblett in 1942 at St Matthew's Church, Dunedin.

Colin McCahon began the first of his early religious paintings, I Paul to you at Ngatimoti, in 1946 in Nelson.

Colin McCahon was never a member of a church, but acknowledged that religious questions were central to his work.

Colin McCahon felt the directness of words could help, provide a 'way in' to his images, a long tradition within painted images, especially in religious art.

In September 1947, Colin McCahon showed a different selection at the Dunedin Public Library.

Colin McCahon met poet John Caselberg in Christchurch in October 1948.

Colin McCahon collaborated with Caselberg on various works that fused words and images.

The support of the poet and editor, Charles Brasch, enabled Colin McCahon to visit Melbourne from July to August 1951 to study paintings in the National Gallery of Victoria.

In May 1953, Colin McCahon moved his family to Titirangi, Auckland, where they bought a house.

Partly as a result of his exposure to the area, Colin McCahon painted many landscapes featuring beaches, the sea, the sky, land, boats, and kauri trees.

Colin McCahon started working at the Auckland City Art Gallery first as a cleaner, then as a custodian of the paintings, and finally, in April 1956, as the deputy director.

Colin McCahon assisted in the professionalisation of the gallery and helped it mount the first exhibitions and publications to record New Zealand art history.

Colin and Ann McCahon visited galleries and museums throughout America.

In 1964, Colin McCahon started working as a lecturer at the Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland.

Colin McCahon worked almost exclusively in black and white after the mid-'60s and produced a number of works combining numbers and texts, such as Io, and Lark's Song was based on a poem by Matire Kereama, whose book The Tail of the Fish deepened Colin McCahon's interest in Maoritanga and Maori imagery.

Colin McCahon produced both word and landscape paintings during this period, but words increasingly began to dominate his output.

In 1984, the exhibition "I Will Need Words" was presented as part of the Biennale of Sydney; Colin McCahon was barely able to appreciate his growing international reputation due to his ill health.

Colin McCahon died in Auckland City Hospital on 27 May 1987.

Colin McCahon is best known for his large paintings with dark backgrounds overlaid with religious texts in white.

Colin McCahon himself explored issues of Christianity and pacifism both within and outside of this national identity.

At the Dunedin School of Art, Colin McCahon met Rodney Eric Kennedy, Doris Lusk, Anne Hamblett, and Patrick Hayman, a group whose members all went on to become notable New Zealand artists.

Colin McCahon met Mary Cockburn-Mercer in 1953 on a trip to Melbourne; she rekindled his interest in cubism.

Colin McCahon had visited the studio of Kaprow and he saw Kaprow's work exhibited in New York at the Hansa Gallery.

Colin McCahon started incorporating words into his paintings in the 1940s, a move often criticized by the public, but which he felt was necessary to directly communicate with the viewers of his art.

McCahon was the subject of a 2004 biographical documentary titled Colin McCahon: I Am, produced by Television New Zealand and directed by Paul Swadel.