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On Building Bridges
Colin McCahon1952
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
Auckland, New Zealand
The triptych On Building Bridges was the first painting by Colin McCahon to enter the Gallery’s collection. It combines his interest in North Canterbury’s landscape with a Cubist disintegration of form. The steel trusses mirror the crisscrossed lines of the Canterbury plains, their geometry intersects with the steel armatures, which swing out above them.
For McCahon, man’s co-existence with nature has a spiritual dimension: ‘Most of my work has been aimed at relating man to the world, an acceptance of the very beautiful and terrible mysteries we are part of.’
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Details
- Title: On Building Bridges
- Creator: Colin McCahon
- Creator Lifespan: 1919 - 1987
- Creator Nationality: New Zealand
- Creator Gender: Male
- Creator Death Place: Auckland, New Zealand
- Creator Birth Place: Timaru, New Zealand
- Date Created: 1952
- Physical Dimensions: w3009 x h1288 x d100 mm (Without frame)
- More Info: Catalogue - Beneath the Surface: McCahon's materials and techniques 1954-1966 - Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
- Description: Colin McCahon was born in Timaru in 1919 and attended Dunedin School of Art from 1937–9. He first exhibited at the Otago Art Society in 1939, and continued making and exhibiting artwork for 45 years. McCahon is widely recognised as New Zealand’s foremost painter. He died in Auckland in 1987.
- Type: Painting
- Rights: Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, purchased 1958
- External Link: Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
- Medium: oil on hardboard
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