The Coming of the Maori

This monumental sculpture depicts the legendary Polynesian explorer Kupe with his wife, Kuramārōtini/Hine-te-Aparangi, and tohunga, Pekahourangi. Kupe is a very significant ancestor to Māori, and in many iwi narratives he is credited with being the first Polynesian to discover the islands of Aotearoa New Zealand. Originally titled The Coming of the Maori, the sculpture was commissioned by the New Zealand Government for the 1939-1940 Centennial Exhibition.

Sculptor William Trethewey, who trained at the Canterbury College School of Art, was commissioned to create sculptures for the Centennial Exhibition, representing key moments in Aotearoa New Zealand’s history. This included statuary groups depicting Pioneer Men and Pioneer Women, and a monumental frieze showing important historical figures and markers of industrial and cultural progress. The statue of Kupe, Kuramārōtini/Hine-te-Aparangi, and Pekahourangi was not included in the brief, so Trethewey may have conceived of the group himself. For the Exhibition, the statue was mounted on a special plinth shaped like a canoe prow, and stood at the end of a reflecting pool.

The statue, which is 6.78m high, is constructed of plaster, laid over a wooden frame. It sits on a wooden and concrete base, although this base may not be original. The plaster has been painted several times. The first two paint layers are a gold/bronze colour (probably the original colour chosen for the Centennial Exhibition), and then there are two dark brown paint layers. The outer coating is a commercial car paint (Honda Civic Brown) applied in the 1980s or 1990s for display in the Winter Show Buildings in Wellington.

It was intended that following the closure of the Centennial Exhibition in 1940 the sculpture would be installed permanently in the Dominion Museum on Buckle Street. It was found to be too large to install in the building, so was instead placed in the foyer of the Wellington Railway Station. In 1985, the sculpture was transferred to the Winter Show Buildings in John Street, and ownership was vested in the Wellington Winter Show Association. They gifted the sculpture to Te Papa in 1997.

In 1999, the plaster statue was transported to Auckland so it could be used to make a mould, and a replica of the statue was cast in bronze for permanent display. It was unveiled on the Wellington waterfront on 29 January 2000. The Kupe Group Trust raised almost $400,000 for the project, and Artwork Studios oversaw the work. In order to make the mould, the original plaster statue was sprayed with furniture wax so that nothing would stick to it, then with mould rubber, and finally with a very thin layer of glass reinforced concrete. When the mould pieces were removed, some of the outer layers of paint were stripped off the statue, revealing the gold paint beneath.

References:
Dunn, Michael. 2002. New Zealand Sculpture: A History. Auckland: Auckland University Press.
Lister, Aaron, and Jenny Harper (eds). 2007. Wellington: A City for Sculpture. Wellington: Victoria University Press.
Te Awa, Isaac. n.d. ‘Kupe’. Te Papa Collections Online Narrative, https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/topic/10732
The Kupe Group Project. 1999. Update flyer 1, July. ‘Lambton Harbour Management Limited - Waterfront development project - Kupe statue’, Wellington City Council Archives.