Maori women and children on riverbank

Text originally created for Tūrangawaewae: Art and New Zealand exhibition at Te Papa, March 2018.

A carefully staged scene, airbrushed of hardship.

Gottfried Lindauer is best known for his portraits, but he also painted scenes of Māori life – many of them composite images, stitched together from various sources.

Here, women wearing European clothing prepare to cook potatoes and fish over an open fire. Lindauer has portrayed a world caught between past and present – a view that tells us more about Pākehā perspectives than Māori realities.

He wāhi kua āta whakaritea, ā, kua hunaia ngā raru.

E mōhiotia whānuitia ana a Gottfried Lindauer mō āna kōwaiwai kiritangata heoi, i whakaahua hoki ia i te oranga o te Māori – ko te nuinga he kohinga whakaahua nō ngā wāhi rerekē.

Anei ētahi wāhine e whakarite ana ki te tunu i te rīwai me te ika i runga i te ahi. Kua whakaahutia e Lindauer te hanumitanga o tētahi ao ō uki me o nāianei – he tirohanga Pākehā.

---

These Māori women prepare food over an open fire, yet they use European implements and colonial-style clothing, as if caught between past and present.

The world portrayed is, in fact, idealised. The subjects are generic, and the scene is airbrushed of the hardships that Māori would have experienced in 1910.

Gottfried Lindauer made many such paintings of Māori life, alongside the portraits for which he is best known. Some, like this one, ultimately tell us more about European views than they do about Māori life.