Limited editions Whale Prints

For background on the artist and works, see below.

Current Works

About the Artist

Series of limited edition prints originally created for the National Whale Centre that was established in Picton. The Centre has for now closed its doors but some of the print editions are still available.

More About the Artist

The artists participating in this print series were Dick Frizzell, Gregory O’Brien, John Walsh, John Pule, and Michel Tuffery . Frizzell’s print One for the Whales continues his recent collaboration with NZ poet Sam Hunt, this time an interpretation of Hunt’s 1970s poem The Harpooner’s Song also known as Too Late Today to Leave, about the reality of life as a whaler in Picton and Cook Strait in the mid 20th Century. It’s a relevant nod to the history of Picton which makes it the appropriate location to educate and promote the future of the whales which migrate past the region each year (with the whalers now counting them for the Dept of Conservation). O’Brien created Raoul Island Whale Survey with Shipping Containers, Astrolabe Reef, a heavily ironic reference to the danger posed by the wreck of the Rena near Tauranga, to the whales migrating through New Zealand waters. The containers underwater are stacked perilously on a slight lean, as the whales rise and fall through the waters, oblivious to the danger. John Walsh worked in intaglio etching and aquatint for the first time to create He Whanaunga, the most expressive work in the series. The whale rises – or broaches – with water seemingly streaming off its back. An image of hope for the future of the whales. The lithograph by John Pule, one of our most prominent Pacific-NZ artists, None but Ourselves was released at the end of March 2014. In Michel Tuffery’s expression of sanctuary, instead of harpoons, lei – protection – are cast to a whale in a window of light amidst darkening clouds.