Detribalised natives, Taranaki

This essay originally appeared in New Zealand Art at Te Papa (Te Papa Press, 2018).

Reviewing the 1865 New Zealand International Exhibition in Dunedin, William Fox, fellow painter and politician, regretted that JC Richmond’s artistic activities ‘should be smothered by the details of an official life’.1

Richmond had the briefest artistic education in England and trained as a civil engineer, but after arriving in New Zealand in 1851 he was employed as a politician, a journalist and an administrator. Richmond travelled extensively around the country in the 1860s, his paintbox always by his side. Duty and circumstance occasionally curtailed his penchant for painting; on a visit to Skippers Canyon in 1867, he lamented, ‘All was frost and the sun so little on the valley that if time had allowed I could hardly have made a sketch for the cold.’2 Richmond is best remembered by the body of work produced in those stolen moments. His work demonstrates an attention to the picturesque, and often avoids referencing the political reason for his presence.

Te Reinga, falls of the Wairoa. Hawke’s Bay was made during a trip to the East Coast in 1867 to deal with Māori grievances. Its bold, freely applied strokes of restrained colour show his skilful handling of watercolour. Detribalised natives, Taranaki seems to offer a visual metaphor for the plight of Māori in the late 1860s, when colonial settlement and conflict had left many alienated from their land.Richmond’s watercolours of the 1860s have been described by Tim Walker as having a ‘distinctive “still” sense of atmosphere, an open — almost photographic — compositional style and a careful draughtsman-like concern for topographical correctness’.3 Though Richmond would have seen such paintings as preliminary sketches, their freshness and vibrancy has ensured their lasting appeal.The Richmond collection, selected by the artist’s daughter, DK Richmond, was given to the National Art Gallery by Esmond A Atkinson following DK Richmond’s death in 1935.

Rebecca Rice

1 ‘Rambler’, Wellington Independent, 16 March 1865, p. 3. Annotations in the Hocken Library copy of this paper identify ‘Rambler’ as William Fox.

2 JC Richmond, letter to CW Richmond, Dunedin, 13 June 1867, cited in Guy H Scholefield (ed.), The Richmond–Atkinson Papers, vol. 2, Government Printer, Wellington, p. 250.

3 Tim Walker, ‘James Crowe Richmond’s artistic career’, in James Crowe Richmond, exhibition catalogue, National Art Gallery, Wellington, 1991, p. 26.

James Richmond began his life in New Zealand as a farmer, but quickly abandoned farming for politics. He made this pencil sketch of ravaged native bush shortly after retiring from a stint as de facto Native Minister – a role that caused him a great deal of anxiety as he sought to ‘secure justice’ for both Māori and Pākehā.

This work, Detribalised natives, Taranaki, seems to offer a visual metaphor for the plight of Māori in the late 1860s, when colonial settlement and conflict had left many Māori alienated from their land.