Blue harbour and camouflaged ship

This is Patrick Hayman’s first major oil painting. He painted it in 1942, in the middle of the Second World War. At the time Hayman had recently moved to Wellington and was living in a flat in the hills, that looked down across the harbour.

This painting takes that view and reduces it to its barest forms. The city has disappeared, and we look straight to the Orongorongos – huge, flat shapes on the far-side of a stretch of sea. The painting is a patchwork of blues and greys, punctured by the yellow stripes on the camouflaged ship at its centre. Pushing almost to the point of abstraction, Hayman uses short, thick brushstrokes to emphasise the flatness of paint going onto canvas.

Patrick Hayman was born in London in 1915. His father was a New Zealander, and in 1936 he emigrated to Dunedin to work in the family importing business. He quickly became part of Dunedin’s art world, enrolling at art school in the late 1930s. Hayman was encouraged in his painting by friendships with artists like Anne Hamblett, Doris Lusk, and Colin McCahon. In 1947 he returned to Britain, where he continued to work as an artist.