John Drawbridge; NZ painter & printmaker
Hyfler/Rosner
11 August 2005
http://www.tinakorigallery.co.nz/artist.php?artistid=14
http://feelinggreat.co.nz/arts/event/exhibition/6187.php
Working in a variety of media, notably intaglio prints, oils
and large murals, over a 50-year career John Drawbridge
developed an abstract art which encapsulated elements of New
Zealand land- and seacape. His work attracted international
recognition, while informing the reception of Modernism in
New Zealand, and of New Zealand art overseas.
John Drawbridge was born in 1930 in Wellington, the son of
Samuel Drawbridge, the Wellington City Treasurer, and Elma
Wylie. He initially trained at Wellington Technical College
and Wellington Teachers' Training College. Winning a
National Art Gallery travelling scholarship, in 1957 he came
to the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London, where he
studied and worked for three years, notably with Merlyn
Evans and Mervyn Peake, before moving to Paris in 1960. The
same year he married the sculptor Tanya Ashken, then a
student silversmith at the Central School, who is the
subject for his 1960 etching Seated Woman, as well as later
works.
At a time when printmaking as a skill was at a low ebb,
Drawbridge was introduced to mezzotint by Evans and
developed his skills in Paris with Stanley William Hayter
and Johnny Friedlander, where he frequented Lacouričre's
workshop watching the printing of Picasso, Braque and
Chagall.
Returning to London, Drawbridge worked at a boys'
comprehensive school in the East End and then had a
part-time job at Isleworth Polytechnic, where he found
himself teaching drawing in the former mansion of Sir Joseph
Banks (Cook's botanist on the Endeavour), where New Zealand
and Pacific plants were still growing. The climax of this
period came in 1963 with a successful exhibition at the
Redfern Gallery in London, signifying his growing acceptance
on the London artistic scene.
A large mural had been commissioned from him the previous
year for New Zealand House in Haymarket, then under
construction. This was installed in 1963. The 50ft mural, on
10 large canvas panels, caused Drawbridge to analyse what
might represent New Zealand and he conveyed a
non-representational feeling for place, encapsulating land-
and seascapes, largely expressed in blocks of colour.
Working on it prompted his return to New Zealand with Tanya.
In 1991 the mural was removed and sent to Wellington and it
is now housed at the National Archives Building. It was a
dominant feature of the major exhibition of Drawbridge's
work at the City Gallery, Wellington in 2001-02.
In Wellington, early in 1964, the Drawbridges set up home in
a spacious house on the coast at Island Bay, looking out
over the Cook Strait, where, for over 40 years, surrounded
by varying examples of their works and work in progress,
they became a vibrant and active focus of the New Zealand
cultural scene. In 1964 John Drawbridge started to teach at
the Wellington Polytechnic School of Design; he continued
teaching until 1986, and only resigned from the School of
Design in 1990.
After New Zealand House, Drawbridge's public works included
a succession of large-scale murals which adorn various New
Zealand public buildings. Notable among these are the Expo
70 mural (now rebuilt in the National Library, Wellington),
a mural commissioned for the IBM Centre in the AMP Building
(now in the foyer of Radio New Zealand) and the Beehive
Mural in the Parliament Buildings, Wellington. Others were
in Auckland University School of Architecture Library and
the CML building, Wellington. The latter, only completed in
1985, was destroyed when the building was refurbished in
1994, much to the artist's despair.
Drawbridge started as a textile designer, then moved to
prints, then oils, water colours and multimedia, but all
were informed by his characteristic feeling for light and
texture. Notable among his early prints, Long Landscape
(1959) is an amazingly busy panorama in black, the shadowed
landscape almost seeming to be a study for his drawing
teacher's novel Gormenghast.
While his was an abstract art, it was an art celebrating
light and the sea and even before he returned to New
Zealand, his oil painting Pacific Lagoon (1962) created an
iconic image which would later feature as the cover of The
Wide-Open Interior (2001), Gregory O'Brien's book about
Drawbridge. Abstract evocations of sea and skyscapes across
the Cook Strait can be found in paintings such as
Sea-Element (1963-64), Sea Window No 2 (1984) and Pacific
(1995).
When my wife and I last stayed with the Drawbridges in
Wellington, the enormous painting Sea and Sky (1971), the
Shaw Savill Shipping Company mural, a wonderful impression
of sea textures and sky, dominated one wall of their sitting
room. This had been rescued by Tanya from storage in the UK
after the shipping company went under. With the light coming
through the large windows, it was easy to understand the
impact of the marine panorama outside.
When Drawbridge's painting Coastline, Island Bay (1967) was
chosen for presentation to the Canadian government to mark
their centenary in 1967 it was the subject of a local
newspaper campaign against its non-representational
character. Even more in his watercolours, Drawbridge was
able to create glowing colour effects, as in Bluescape
(2000). He constantly experimented with a range of
techniques and one remembers with affection the almost
childish delight, the twinkling eyes and shy smile, as he
demonstrated his Expo 70 mural in the National Library, with
its use of fibre optics to give a rippling effect.
When I visited John and Tanya in Wellington, I was taken on
a personal tour of his work in situ round the city - in
buildings from the Parliament Building to the British High
Commission. He was like a father fondly visiting his
children, his softly spoken commentary and youthful
enthusiasm contagious. The high point was the Beehive mural,
painted on both sides of 16ft fins of aluminium set at right
angles to a very long curved wall, the whole nearly 140ft
long, with a remarkable effect of changing perspectives and
colour as one walks round in either direction.
Stained glass was a new challenge for him in the 1990s, and
in 1991 he accepted a commission for a suite of windows for
the rebuilt Our Lady Chapel at the Home of Compassion,
Island Bay, and produced an expressive composition in
textured glass and varied colours. He also designed the
stations of the cross which were cut in steel by laser,
backed with large panes of coloured glass.
That year, too, he started collaborating with Dilana Rugs of
Christchurch, not only producing new designs, but also some
taken from his watercolours. An enormous rug, to commemorate
the bicentenary of Captain Cook's observation of the transit
of Mercury, was chosen for the new British High Commission
building in Wellington in 1996.
Perhaps the climax of this period was a remarkable family
show in 1995 at which John, Tanya and both their sons, Tony
and Cameron, simultaneously exhibited. And in 2001, John
Drawbridge's career was crowned by a solo exhibition, "The
Wide-Open Interior", at the City Gallery, Wellington and the
publication of Gregory O'Brien's book of the same title.
In recent years, although he was suffering the early stages
of motor neurone disease, Drawbridge was still very active
and in full flood of creativity, painting and exhibiting,
and he died unexpectedly from an unrelated acute episode.
Lewis Foreman
John Boys Drawbridge, painter and printmaker: born
Wellington, New Zealand 27 December 1930; MBE 1978; married
1960 Tanya Ashken (two sons); died Wellington 24 July 2005.
Sarns
"Hyfler/Rosner" <rel...@rcn.com> wrote in message
news:G_idnVcyK-F...@rcn.net...
> From The Independent ~
> 11 August 2005
>
> http://www.tinakorigallery.co.nz/artist.php?artistid=14
> http://feelinggreat.co.nz/arts/event/exhibition/6187.php
>
> Working in a variety of media, notably intaglio prints, oils
> and large murals, over a 50-year career John Drawbridge
> developed an abstract art which encapsulated elements of New
> Zealand land- and seacape. His work attracted international
> recognition, while informing the reception of Modernism in
> New Zealand, and of New Zealand art overseas.
> John Drawbridge was born in 1930 in Wellington, the
(snip)
shux i feel bad...never heard of the guy!
--
Cheers
Sarndra
Christchurch, New Zealand
www.angelfire.com/ok/nzfamily
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