‘A way through’ Colin McCahon’s Gate III

As part of the Colin McCahon centenary year, McCahon’s epic 1970 mural, Gate III, makes its first appearance in Auckland since it was originally commissioned for Auckland City Art Gallery’s Ten Big Paintings exhibition in 1971.

Gate III was painted in Auckland, drawing on a combination of west-coast views, rural landscapes and religious texts. It returns to the ‘I Am’ motif that he first painted while living in Titirangi in the 1950s and anticipates the grand works he would paint from his new studio in Muriwai. The painting is atypically large for art in 1970s’ Aotearoa, made possible through the Auckland City Art Gallery’s patronage. It is an urgent address to McCahon’s public.

Implicit in the painting is McCahon’s acknowledged ambition to make a statement against the nuclear threat, a statement that would reach even the most sceptical viewer of modern art. Given humanity’s indefatigable and self-centred quest for power, this message still resonates today.

Immediately following the nationwide tour of Ten Big Paintings, Gate III was purchased for the Victoria University of Wellington Art Collection. Since 1972 it has been on permanent public display at the University.

Literally a ‘one painting’ exhibition, ‘A way through’ offers three thematic entry points into McCahon’s work: addressing its material history as a commissioned artwork destined for a university collection; locating it within McCahon’s artistic output; and as a lens on the fraught socio-political times in which it was painted. These themes are drawn out in the accompanying archival material especially gathered for the occasion.

Developed and toured by Adam Art Gallery Te Pataka Toi. Supported by Dame Jenny Gibbs.

Image: Gate III, painting by Colin McCahon. Dominion post (Newspaper): Photographic negatives and prints of the Evening Post and Dominion newspapers. Ref: EP/1978/1078/5A-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.

24 August - 20 October 2019

Preview event: Friday 23 August, 6.30pm
Public opening: Saturday 24 August, 4pm