Artist back from Antarctica

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33447, 31 January 1974, Page 16

Artist back from Antarctica

Mr Maurice Conly, the Christchurch artist, returned from the Antarctic yesterday where, in spite of “an impossible climate to paint in,” he produced the first set of drawings and paintings commissioned by the D.S.I.R. to show the work of New Zealanders on the ice.

Mr Conly, who had to put rocks in his paintbox to stop it blowing away, and carried a thermos flask of hot water to unfreeze his brushes and water-based paints, spent seven weeks at Scott Base, Vanda Station, South Pole, and elsewhere, to produce the paintings and drawings, some of them unfinished at present, which will be used by the D.S.I.R. for promotion and "archival purposes.”

“I came back with 30 or so drawings and sketches and from these I will produce a selection of finished pictures in oils and other media.

“I was restricted to a large extent because the materials I worked with were so affected by the weather. My paint brushes froze continually. At the South Pole, it was impossible to work much at all —it was 50deg Fahrenheit below zero, and there was a 60-knot gale.” Mr Conly, aged 53, visited the Antarctic for the first time about a year ago, as an artist for the R.N.Z.A.F. He works in Christchurch as a professional painter; his painting of the Town Hall is on the cover of the latest telephone directory.