Gordon Crook: the pastel triptychs

Tuhinga 32: 120-134

ABSTRACT: Gordon Crook (1921–2011), a British textile artist who arrived in New Zealand in 1972 and settled in Wellington, became well known as a tapestry weaver and designer of decorative banners, as well as a silkscreen printer, before turning to pastel drawing in 1984–85. He created two suites of pastels, each ‘drawing’ consisting of three sheets of fine art paper pasted on watermarked paper on board. These were shown at two exhibitions in Wellington, one at the Janne Land Gallery (1985) and the second at the City Art Gallery (1986). They marked a sharp change of direction in his work, from cheerful and decorative to introspective and complex composite images of memory and feeling states. They are represented in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa collection by arguably the best of these drawings, Gymnasium. Crook did not turn to pastels again, but his work on these two suites served as the foundation for his collaged photographic prints of 1989, as well as the tapestries and prints of his Wolf-Man project of 1991. This paper is based on Crook’s voluminous correspondence archived in the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.

KEYWORDS: Gordon Crook, Lesley Nicholls, tapestry, design, textiles, loom, frame, cartoon, weaving, style, imagery.