Following the Second World War, Gordon Tovey in the Department of Education encouraged a generation of Māori artists to draw on their cultural traditions in developing modernist art. Para Matchitt, shown here, was employed as an art adviser by the department and began to follow Tovey's suggestion. Matchitt drew particular inspiration from the great Spanish modernist Pablo Picasso, as can be seen in these paintings, and he applied Picasso's style to the representation of traditional stories such as the separation of Rangi and Papa.
Using this item
Reference: New Zealand Woman's Weekly, 27 September 1965, p. 16 (S-L-1320-16)
by Michael Willison
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.