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This dramatic landscape demonstrates the formal aspects of Cedric Savage’s distinctive style. He had been trained as a carver and designer at the Canterbury College School of Art, and this gave him a finely developed sense of form, shape and contour. Though the painting would have been completed in the studio, all Savage’s landscapes retain an ‘en plein air’ (open-air) quality that gives them great vitality and captures a particular mood. Savage has defined the landforms and the clouds in this work through the suggestion of sunlight and shadow present in the landscape.
It has been suggested by one critic, Fred McLean, that Savage’s work was influenced by cubism,(1) but he rejected any form of abstraction and it is more likely that the geometric and structural elements in his work came from his experiences as a carver and designer. He was always credited with being a competent technician with sound draughtsmanship underlying a bright, high-keyed palette favouring local colour. In later years he was generally dissatisfied with the critical reception his work received in New Zealand and after the Second World War made several trips abroad to Spain, Italy and Greece. He thrived in the warmth and colour of these countries and produced some splendid paintings of their markets, harbours and villages. He eventually opted to settle permanently in Greece in 1955. He made his last visit to New Zealand in 1961, when he was a recipient of the Kelliher Art Award, and maintained a link as an exhibiting member of the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts until his death.
Originally titled Wanaka landscape, this painting was considered to be a fine example of his work when it was exhibited in Dunedin and Christchurch before Savage donated it to the Academy. It became part of the Academy’s original gift of some three hundred paintings to the National Art Gallery in 1936.
Tony Mackle
This essay originally appeared in Art at Te Papa (Te Papa Press, 2009).
1. Fred McLean, ‘Kiwi cubist: le style c’est l’homme’, Evening Post, 3 November 1988, p. 24.