Elements of modernism in Colin McCahon's early work

Abstract

THIS ESSAY IS the text of a lecture by Gordon H. Brown, on aspects of Modernism in the early work of Colin McCahon, which was delivered on 12 December 2002 at the City Gallery in Wellington. It marked three very special occasions. Firstly the lecture was scheduled on the day after Gordon H. Brown was awarded his Honorary Doctorate of Literature by Victoria University for his services to Art History in New Zealand. What better way to commemorate this event than to enable McCahon's friend and exegete to peak on his specialist subject, to reveal , in new and nuanced ways , his intimate knowledge of the artist's life and work? Secondly, what better venue than the City Gallery, Wellington, where a major exhibition of McCahon 's work (Colin McCahon : A Question of Faith) - the first staged by and for a European audience - had just opened, having returned from the institution that had organised it, Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum? And thirdly, the serendipity of these two events lent special weight to our decision to seize this opportunity to present Brown's lecture as Victoria University's inaugural Art History Lecture, which we hope to continue and to publish as one of our contributions to the development of the history of art in this country.