"Colin McCahon A Question of Faith"
2003-11-15 until 2004-01-18
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Sydney, , AU Australia

Colin McCahon (Timaru 1919 - Auckland 1987, New Zealand) is the most extraordinary artist in the Southern Hemisphere and certainly the most ambitious and radical of his time. New Zealand's first painter of major importance, his impact on the arts in that country is such that it is impossible to be an artist there without taking his work into account. Since his death in 1987 his work and life as a painter, teacher and museum curator have become the subject of much discussion and research.

Organised by Dr Marja Bloem of the Stedelijk Museum in Holland, the exhibition Colin McCahon: A Question of Faith presents more than 70 works by this major modernist painter and concludes its international tour in Sydney. The exhibition will be on view at The Art Gallery of New South Wales from 15 November 2003 to 18 January 2004. Central to McCahon's oeuvre is the investigation of the true nature of faith and his own spiritual experience and development. Covering all periods of his career from the late 1930s to the early 1980s, the included works are on loan from public and private collections in Australia, New Zealand and Europe.

This retrospective, organised by such a respected European museum, is an important step in the worldwide recognition of this influential painter, so little known outside New Zealand and Australia. McCahon's work includes the exploration of the nature of spiritual belief and experience. The issues of identity and spirituality through the New Zealand landscape, an attempt to engage with the challenges of "modernism" and abstraction, and an exploration of Maori and environmental concerns are also central to his work. All are inextricably linked and developed in response to each other and to the changing world around him (both on a personal and universal level).

IMAGE
Colin McCahon
The Promised Land 1948
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, New Zealand
Reproduced with permission of the Colin McCahon
Research and Publication Trust

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for Australia

Other Important Exhibitions in Sydney