Media Type: Drawing

  • Don Binney

    Don Binney

    The Estate of Don Binney has released two new limited edition silk screenprints, based on his 1965 painting New Summer, Te Henga, using the same process and screenprinting specialist the artist used for his later limited edition works.

    New Summer, Te Henga I uses the classic ‘Binney blues’ which the artist consciously chose for a number of his works; the second variation adopts the golden tones of his early Fern Bird paintings.

    About the Artist

    Don Binney needs little introduction to art lovers – or the New Zealand public – so distinctive are his iconic paintings and drawings of birds and landforms. In a career spanning more than 50 years, his commitment to ornithology, environmental issues and spiritual connection with the land drove his art practice.

    Binney was Head of Painting at the Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland, retiring in 1998 after 24 years of teaching. He exhibited continuously from the 1960s until his death in September 2012, aged 72. After retiring, he continued to focus full time on his art, travelling extensively, especially within New Zealand and to places of spiritual significance internationally. From 2002, he worked increasingly in charcoal and colour pencil because of its portability and simply because he loved the intimacy of the medium.

    His perspective on landforms was as distinctive as the symbolism of his stylised birds. After becoming identified primarily for capturing the essence of endemic and some introduced birds in his art, he set them aside for many years as he investigated other media – including photography and collage – and diverse subjects. In later years he discovered there were still concepts to explore through this combination of his deep knowledge of ornithology and his art, and in 1999 he began to produce new bird series – as sought after as the early images.

    In her book New Zealand Art – A Modern Perspective, Elva Bett described Binney as a pivotal artist ‘of unusual sensitivity and insight’, with clear light and sharp definition creating linear patterns to structure his compositions. That was in 1986. Although his paintings remained sought after through the 1980s and 1990s, there was a strong resurgence in collector interest in his final decade of work, including the finely crafted pencil drawings he favoured for their portability and the potential to work directly in the landscape. He is regarded among the most collectible names in New Zealand art.

    The Diversion Gallery was principal agent for Don Binney in the six years before he passed away in 2012, and represents the Estate – with a small number of works for sale. Works from the Binney studio and family collection were released to initiate a project for a major book on Don Binney, ultimately resulting in Don Binney – Flight Path by Gregory O’Brien (AUP) in 2023, winning an Ockham Book Award in 2024.

    We have copies of the beautiful volume Drawing the Waitakere Coast, (Random House) ($35) in which Don personally described in his own words, his journeys both artistic and literally over those pathways on the coast west of Auckland, which were his best known artistic territory. He created a suite of intimate drawings especially to illustrate the book, a non-selling show which toured regional public galleries from 2010 to 2012 and was shown in a tribute exhibition at his ‘alma mater’ Kings College in 2013.

    Recent Works

    In the last decade of his life and career, Don Binney increasingly used pencil, charcoal and colour pencil to capture the essence of landscape and birdlife with immediacy; occasionally working these up to the paintings for which he remains best known.  He used colour pencil or pastel over heavy watercolour paper with deceptive simplicity, skimming over the tooth of the paper so the white of the paper conveyed the effect of light on water or foliage.

    He focused on two regions in particular: the Waitakere Coast west of Auckland which was his best-known ‘territory’ throughout his career; and the Marlborough Sounds, which ‘began to reveal itself’ after his first Marlborough solo exhibition, Vintage Binney, at The Diversion Gallery in 2003, prompting several visits and an evolving series of both drawings and paintings. This was a breaking of new ground by a senior artist known for particular loyalty to places which touch his life deeply. It was evident here in his discovery of the barely populated landforms, the crouching islands, the changing moods of the Marlborough Sounds, the birdlife in bush and on water, the soft southern light.

    He also visited the bird sanctuary Hauturu – Little Barrier Island – being the long-time patron of its Supporters’ Trust, and continued to produce works to aid conservation projects like this and Marlborough’s Kaipupu Point sanctuary, persisting despite ill health in the last weeks of his life, in his determination to lift the profile and financial support of environmental causes.

    Limited Edition Prints

    Don Binney only rarely produced limited edition lithographs and screenprints. We have a few available from the studio collection, including a striking 2004 lithograph Edward Kaiarara VII, from his Effigy series of crowned heads based on coin imagery, referring to colonial impact on the New Zealand landscape. The bird sanctuary of Little Barrier Island/Hauturu (Don Binney was patron of the Supporters’ Trust) notably sits above the crown – contrary to royal protocol where nothing is above the Crown.

    The lithograph Beyond Wainamu was created to offer as a fundraiser for environmental projects; the singular print available has an unusual annotated signature, probably why Don Binney retained it in his studio collection; it has only recently been framed and made available.

    More About the Artist

    Career biographical notes 1995-2005:

    1995: Awarded OBE for services to the Arts. Remuera Jug & Other Suites, Solo Show – Elaine Meyer/ASA, Auckland.

    1996: Don Binney – Recent Works, A Selection, Fine Arts Gallery, University of Canterbury, Christchurch. Sabbatical leave to UK. Grace and Peace to you from God – stained glass window, St Thomas’ Anglican Church, Tamaki.

    1997: Ancient Earth, Solo Show, Brooke-Gifford Gallery, Christchurch.

    1998: Retired as Head of Painting, Elam School of Arts, University of Auckland, after twenty-four years’ teaching. Sites of Significance, Solo Show, Judith Anderson Gallery, Auckland.

    1999: Revisiting, Solo Show, Brooke-Gifford Gallery, Christchurch. Preface to Highway One, photo-survey by Bret de Their. Millennium Medal, Waitakere City. The Dream Collectors, Te Papa Tongarewa, Museum of New Zealand, Wellington.

    2000: Nga Motu, Solo Show, Milford Galleries, Auckland. 25th Anniversary Survey, Brooke-Gifford Gallery, Christchurch. 2001: Cross-Water, Solo Show, Milford Galleries Dunedin. Michaelmas, Solo Show, Brooke-Gifford Gallery, Christchurch.

    2002: Paper presented: John Kinder: Founding Vision, Local Realities – Eighth annual Kinder Society Lecture, St John’s Theological College, Auckland. Landscape, Two-artist Show (with Gerda Leenards) Artis Gallery, Auckland. Vintage Binney, Solo Show, The Diversion Gallery, Grove Mill Winery, Marlborough.

    2003: Nga Manu/Nga Motu, Monograph with 75 colour plates; Damian Skinner, Auckland University Press. 12: dialogues with time, Chrysalis Seed Trust Group Exhibition curated by John Stringer, Centre for Contemporary Art, Christchurch. Forty Years On, survey exhibition curated by Damian Skinner, Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt. Then and Now, Solo Show, Williams Gallery, Petone. ’63 to Sixty-three, Self-sourced Retrospective, Brooke-Gifford Gallery, Christchurch.
    2004: Forty Years On, survey exhibition, Auckland Art Gallery, touring to Waikato and Manawatu. ‘63 to Sixty-three, Millennium Public Art Gallery, Blenheim. Representation and Reaction, curated by Peter Shaw, Sargeant Gallery, Wanganui; to tour Porirua and Auckland.

    2005: Forty Years On, ends tour at Hawkes Bay Museum and Art Gallery. Rakiura drawings, Dancing Star Foundation exhibit, Southland Museum and Art Gallery. There Before the Gulf, Solo Show, Artis Gallery, Auckland. 30th Anniversary Survey, Brooke-Gifford Gallery, Christchurch. Judge, Pumphouse Art Award, Takapuna. Deep Sounds, Solo Show, The Diversion Gallery, Marlborough.

    2012: Ocean’s Edge, a survey exhibition incorporating the Drawing the Waitakere Coast Suite, at the Millennium Public Art Gallery, Blenheim co-curated by The Diversion Gallery.

    People look at his coastal landscapes and ask: ‘Where is this place?’ Binney answered: ‘It is wherever resonates with you.’ It is undeniably New Zealand, and encourages us to ponder on who we are as New Zealanders. His last and largest screenprint, Mill Creek, Rakiura, was a case in point. Although literally of a favourite bay in Stewart Island, it represents different places to different viewers – some see Golden Bay in it, others the Otago coast, Taranaki, Marlborough, or Coromandel. It was always about resonance.

    2018: Flight Path, works from the Binney studio collection and family collection, towards a major monograph by Gregory O’Brien on the artist.

    2023: Earth, Sea, Light at The Diversion, including works released from the Binney Estate collection.

  • Michael Smither

    Michael Smither

    About the Artist

    Michael Smither is one of New Zealand’s most sought-after senior artists, for his iconic super-realist and highly coloured paintings and screenprints which capture a unique and often very personal view of his world.

    In recent years, he returned to his work of the late 1970s, mapping the linkage between the harmonies of colour and those of music – the spectrum and the musical scale. His Harmonograms and Shared Harmonics explore this association, a viewing experience engaging both the senses when viewed while listening to music he has composed. This approaches synaesthesia, the phenomenon of overlapping senses, where some people see a colour when they hear a sound, or vice versa. These series evolved from his Okahu Bay Boats series, inspired by seeing boats at anchor in Okahu Bay reflected and silhouetted in a flood of golden afternoon light across the harbour. Over time he focused just on the shapes of the prows and coloured reflections to create abstract screenprints and sculptures.

    While his work is sought after for major collections, Michael Smither is also committed to remaining accessible to the wider public who love his work, and thus keeps his screenprints and drawings deliberately affordable. He has prints of his most popular paintings with screenprinted ‘enhancements’, these start at $500, images on request. For further information or images, please contact Gallery Director Barbara Speedy on 0274 408 121 or by email info@thediversion.co.nz.

    Recent Works

    ‘The drawings remind us in ways that are both instant and future, mindless and brilliant. The line explains the leap at the truth, and employs many aspects of our existence.’

    In 2024 Michael Smither released about 30 rare drawings from his studio collection, primarily of Central Otago with a few of the Marlborough Sounds, resulting from journeys south in 2005-2006. These give a rare insight into his artistic practice. Most of these drawings were (archivally) framed for the first time, for our exhibition Central in 2024. These include studies towards the dramatic Hawkdun paintings exhibited at The Diversion in 2012 – the final works in a career-long series, capturing the Otago landscape. In five paintings, he took a hyper-surrealist approach to the mountains especially the Hawkdun Range of Central Otago. The drawings show his interest in the ‘sensuous, almost human’ nature of the shadows of the snow clad mountains.

    We have available a special selection of unframed screenprints from 1998-99: rare Artist’s Proofs or last of edition from the artist’s collection, plus a striking Dolphins & Lovers silhouette series in black and white. Other Taranaki inspired screenprints include Fantham’s Peak (of Mt Taranaki). The full range can be viewed by appointment (or email).

    Background on the Artist

    Michael Smither was born in New Plymouth in October 1939. He was educated at New Plymouth schools and left school in 1958, working for Ivon Watkins, a chemical factory which later became controversial and was the subject of some of his paintings. His main interests were art and underwater diving. During his father’s absence in the war years he was raised by his mother and two aunts who became Catholic nuns. He acknowledges the influence strong women have had throughout his life. He attended the Elam School of Fine Arts at Auckland University from 1959-60 but rebelled against the formal environment and left, instead teaching himself and exploring a range of subject matter. He began exhibiting in 1961, initially in New Plymouth and Auckland. In 1962 he began his first ‘rock paintings’, a series which spanned many years and explores ideas about the impact of human occupation on the coastal environment. These became iconic images associated with the artist, even though he has explored many other themes including family, religion/spirituality, clouds, and his pivotal association of colour and musical harmonies.

    Smither won the HC Richards Memorial Prize in Australia in 1968, and in 1970 was the Frances Hodgkins Fellow at Otago University. In 2004 Michael Smither was awarded the ONZM (Companion to the New Zealand Order of Merit) for services to art.

    In the mid-1960s with the birth of his children he began painting images of domestic life, including his children, his wife, and still life objects such as domestic utensils. The domestic paintings captured moments of discovery by his children, or tension between family members. As well as New Plymouth, the Otago region – his mother’s home province – provided much inspiration, expressed in simplified landforms with a human quality.

    Michael Smither is acknowledged as one of nine pivotal painters who emerged in the 1960s to lead contemporary New Zealand art in new directions. Over six decades later, he stands at the crux of the contemporary movement. A talented musician/composer, in the 1970s and 80s Smither became fascinated by the link between music and art, on the basis that ‘if anything looked good, it could sound good’. He completed a number of works which could actually be played as a musical score, by translating colour into sound. He identified parallels between the harmonies of colour and those of music, and formalised this into his landmark Harmonic Chart in 1982. He continues to use this as a reference, in screenprints, and translation into sculpture using the stylised forms of boats to carry the colour harmonies.

    After years of dedication to his home region of Taranaki, Michael Smither now lives and paints near a more remote coast, on the Coromandel Peninsula, north of Whitianga.