NOTES ON A NEW ZEALAND PAINTING BY WILLIAM STRUTT (1825-1915)

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 9, Issue 2, 1 October 1976, Page 22

NOTES ON A NEW ZEALAND PAINTING BY WILLIAM STRUTT (1825-1915)

Heather Curnow

William Strutt was in New Zealand from March 1855 to July 1856, arriving in New Plymouth on 27 March 1855. He purchased a block of rural land of over 100 acres about 10 miles from New Plymouth, when he cleared a section by burning and felling the bush, and built a bush ‘whorry’ where he lived with his wife and child. Two albums of drawings and watercolours, purchased from the artist by Alexander Turnbull in 1913, are a valuable historical record of the life of a colonist in the New Zealand bush.

Also in the Alexander Turnbull Library are two oils by William Strutt. The most important of these, which depicts a group of Maoris on a beach, was formerly known as The Beach, New Plymouth, probably because of its affinity with a pencil and watercolour drawing of the same name in Strutt’s albums (Cl/2). This drawing includes some of the same elements as the oil painting: a procession of Maoris carrying produce up the beach, a laden cart drawn by two bullocks, and a Maori in a short, feather cloak driving a pig tied by its hind leg. The oil painting has also been reproduced in From Plymouth to New Plymouth, by R. G. Wood (Wellington, Reed, 1959) as ‘Return of the Ngatiawa Maoris of New Plymouth’. However, R. G. Wood gives no evidence to support this title, and the possibility of the oil representing the return of the Ngatiawa seems unlikely for several reasons. The Ngatiawa Maoris returned to New Plymouth before Strutt’s arrival in New Plymouth, i.e. in 1848. (See: Charles Hursthouse: An Account of the Settlement of New Plymouth, in New Zealand. London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1849, p. 51.)

In all cases, Strutt’s major colonial history paintings were based on events to which he was an eye-witness or, at least, which occurred when he was present in the country, so that he was able to gather eye-witness accounts to aid him in his reconstructions. It is unlikely that Strutt, had he wished to reconstruct this event, would have reduced a scene of such magnitude, as described by Hursthouse, to a mere four canoes, three dozen Maoris, two bullocks and a few pigs. Nor would he have missed the opportunity to paint Maoris on horseback. Nowhere in his Journals does Strutt mention either the return of the Ngatiawa, or that he painted a scene such as this on the beach at New Plymouth. Yet his other historical pictures, even those which remained at the stage of a preparatory drawing, are described in considerable detail. In his later years, when writing his Autobiography, Strutt had

photographs of a number of his paintings and drawings mounted in an album, to serve as illustrations to the work when it was published. This album is now in the possession of the artist’s grand-daughter, Margaret Strutt-Davies, in Edinburgh. The painting in question is included, and labelled in Strutt’s own hand: Maoris beaching their canoes and going off to market, at Onehunga near Auckland. Strutt describes this scene in his Journals, as witnessed by him at Onehunga prior to his departure from Auckland on the William Denny on 4 July 1856.

Before leaving Onehunga a pretty sight presented itself to us. The morning was lovely, and the charming bay and beach were quite animated with a fleet of canoes, just arrived with all sorts of produce for the Auckland market. The picturesque canoes were beached to the lively song of the natives, their contents landed, and the tribe gathered together to hear a short speech from a fine old chief, which done, the kits (native baskets) were shouldered, or strapped to the backs of the bearers, with the strong and handy slings, each generally as well, carrying a huge cum cum or pumpkin, while not a few drove fat pigs tied by one leg to the market. G. Mackaness, ed. The Australian Journal of William Strutt, A.R.A., 1850-1862. (2v.) Sydney, Halstead Press, 1958. Part 11, p. 20. In the Albums, Strutt includes 8 small sketches of Maoris at Onehunga and Taranaki (Cl/14). Two of these relate directly to the oil painting, being preliminary sketches for the seated figure with his back turned, second from the right, and for the semi-recumbent woman with a hat at the back of her head at centre right.

However, Strutt also included several figures based on his New Plymouth drawing: the Maori with the short feather cloak driving a pig, from the drawing of The Beach, New Plymouth, (Cl/2) reappears almost unchanged to the left, and the seated figure in a blue cloak holding a mere, to the right of the standing chief, derives from a drawing of Rawiri, a chief sketched by Strutt in New Plymouth (Cl/6). The promontory in the background is reminiscent of the Sugar Loaves in New Plymouth. So the painting must finally be regarded as a composite work. While the caption in the album of illustrations to Strutt’s unpublished Autobiography indicates that the subject of the picture is the scene on the beach at Onehunga as described in his Journals, the painting also includes landscape and figure elements derived from his Taranaki drawings.