Water-colours of early N.Z.

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32640, 23 June 1971, Page 25

Water-colours of early N.Z.

The Ferrier-Watson collec-1 tion of water-colours by the i Rev. John Kinder is being exhibited at the Robert Me- i Dougall Art Gallery. The 32 j paintings in the collection i have been mounted for exhi-1 bition by the Waikato Art Gallery from an album be- i longing to Dr Ferrier-Watson,

a great-grandson of Mr Kin-1 der. 1 The catalogue accompany- i tag the exhibition was com- < piled by Gordon H. Brown,i director of the Waikato gal-1 leiy. 1 “Inside the White Terrace” I is shown above. 1 Kinder arrived in New Zea-1

land in 1855 at the age of 36 to take up an appointment as master of the proposed Church of England grammar school in Auckland. He was to spend the remainder of his life in New Zealand, travelling extensively, including three trips to the South Island, and holding important

teaching posts associated with the Church in and around Auckland. He died in 1903.

That he did not consider himself important as a painter has been clearly established from his own writings and he is known to have exhibited his paintings publicly on only two occasions, yet he continued to produce a steady volume of paintings and drawings throughout his life.

Seen in perspective, his paintings of the New Zealand landscape are probably of greater significance than those of his more widely acknowledged contemporaries.

Kinder was essentially a tonal painter, showing little concern for atmospheric colour and refusing to be overwhelmed by scenes of remarkable beauty. He was influenced by photography, using photographs he had taken himself in conjunction with sketches as reference for his finished water-colours. He mostly selects a small part of the landscape, portraying it in clear though never fussy detail in terms that are easily recognisable to New Zealanders today. To quote Gordon Brown: “There is a sense of noninvolvement which accompanies Kinder’s ability to produce delicate tonal modulations, subtle greens, blues, and golden browns, to conjure up the physical properties of vegetation, rocks, water, the very structure of the land itself, and to weld these into a single, wellordered vision which adds so much to the pleasure experienced by the spectator when contemplating Kinder’s work.” —G.T.M.