Nature on canvas

Press, 23 July 1986, Page 23

Nature on canvas

Jonathan White’s love of nature led him to the New Zealand wilderness for subjects for his paintings.

White, whose oil paintings are available through galleries in Auckland and Queenstown, is a dedicated conservationist. The latest of his work is showing at Ballantynes in Christchurch from today for a week. Forty-two paintings and 20 sketches make up the exhibition. The works have been put together in a book called "Jonathan White’s New Zealand.” The collection is being marketed as the most significant book of New Zealand landscape paintings for more than 100 years.

The Gisborne-born artist says he has tried in the collection to cover many aspects of the countryside, portraying accessible and isolated spots. The choice of location was entirely his own. The accompanying texts to the oil paintings have been written by John HallJones, a Southland historian.

White has been dubbed the successor to the artists of last century like Angas and Heaphy. He was born in 1938 and raised in the country district of Otoko. He went to school in Auckland where he had formal art lessons.

After a period farming he spent a year with an

art dealer. He has travelled and painted in Tasmania and India. In association with the publication of his book — his second of New Zealand paintings — a national tour of the works has been organised. The paintings and sketches have already been exhibited in Tauranga, Whakatane, Invercargill, and Dunedin. The Christchurch exhibition will continue until July 30.

The exhibition will also be shown in Hastings, Masterton, Wellington and Auckland.

With one exception the works are for sale by tender. All have reserve prices ranging from $5200 to $14,000. .