Patrick Lucas
Artist
Woollaston, Tosswill
Date
1968
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Object Detail
Description
Sir Mountford Tosswill "Toss" Woollaston is widely regarded as a pioneer of the New Zealand modern art movement and one of New Zealand's foremost landscape painters. He is best-known for the large-scale panels he painted in his sixties and seventies. Woollaston painted as a response to his environment, philosophising that “painting from nature is not copying the object, it is realising one’s sensations”. He established emotional connections with his surroundings through his earthy, responsive palette and expressive roughly-hewn brushstrokes.
Woollaston has painted many landscapes, but the human figure held almost equal importance for him. Erua, a book of 48 drawings with an accompanying commentary was published in 1966. Of his drawings he has said " ... lines, blotches, abstraction, naturalism they all go to serve in a crisis. For me every drawing is a crisis and its resolution." During the 1960s he painted several commissioned portraits. These were a welcome supplement to his income, and the social contacts made in the process extended his audience. In 1963 he met an aspiring art dealer from Wellington, Peter McLeavey, who later became Woollaston’s dealer. The 56-year-old artist was delighted to accept. It was all the encouragement he needed to resolve to paint full time. This work Patrick Lucas was Woollaston’s contribution to a project by Auckland art dealer Barry Lett, who in 1968 produced a limited edition set of 12 screenprints by New Zealand’s top artists, known as the Barry Lett Multiples.
Toss Woollaston (born 1910 Taranaki, died 1998, Upper Moutere) was educated at the Canterbury College School of Art. Woollaston worked as an orchardist in Nelson and later, a door-to-door salesman for Rawleigh’s to support his family and art practice. His work was often shown alongside Colin McCahon, with whom he had a life-long friendship. In 1962, he travelled with other New Zealand artists to exhibit at Expo ‘70 in Japan and in a touring exhibition through the United States and Canada. Woollaston was the first New Zealand artist knighted for his services to art in 1979. By 1980 he was the most widely known contemporary painter in New Zealand and published an autobiography titled Sage Tea. At the age of 82 Woollaston represented New Zealand at the International Expo ’92 in Spain. He continued to create work until prevented so by ill health shortly before his death in 1998.
Woollaston has painted many landscapes, but the human figure held almost equal importance for him. Erua, a book of 48 drawings with an accompanying commentary was published in 1966. Of his drawings he has said " ... lines, blotches, abstraction, naturalism they all go to serve in a crisis. For me every drawing is a crisis and its resolution." During the 1960s he painted several commissioned portraits. These were a welcome supplement to his income, and the social contacts made in the process extended his audience. In 1963 he met an aspiring art dealer from Wellington, Peter McLeavey, who later became Woollaston’s dealer. The 56-year-old artist was delighted to accept. It was all the encouragement he needed to resolve to paint full time. This work Patrick Lucas was Woollaston’s contribution to a project by Auckland art dealer Barry Lett, who in 1968 produced a limited edition set of 12 screenprints by New Zealand’s top artists, known as the Barry Lett Multiples.
Toss Woollaston (born 1910 Taranaki, died 1998, Upper Moutere) was educated at the Canterbury College School of Art. Woollaston worked as an orchardist in Nelson and later, a door-to-door salesman for Rawleigh’s to support his family and art practice. His work was often shown alongside Colin McCahon, with whom he had a life-long friendship. In 1962, he travelled with other New Zealand artists to exhibit at Expo ‘70 in Japan and in a touring exhibition through the United States and Canada. Woollaston was the first New Zealand artist knighted for his services to art in 1979. By 1980 he was the most widely known contemporary painter in New Zealand and published an autobiography titled Sage Tea. At the age of 82 Woollaston represented New Zealand at the International Expo ’92 in Spain. He continued to create work until prevented so by ill health shortly before his death in 1998.
Media
Screenprint
Registration number
ART00759
Artist
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