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Overview
This essay originally appeared in New Zealand Art at Te Papa (Te Papa Press, 2018).
Thomas Grant was a mid-nineteenth century Pākehā soldier-artist — indeed, an exemplar of the type. His relatively few documented watercolours reflect a keen interest in Māori people, taonga (treasures) and cultural practices. He was not a particularly sophisticated artist, as is evident from his drawing of figures, but this does not diminish the intensity or freshness of his works.
Grant visited Rotorua in the mid to late 1840s. While there, he made the ink-and-wash drawing Untitled (Pūkākī gateway) before the entrance gateway at the fortified settlement Te Pukeroa Pā was dismantled and the carvings taken apart. The central carving in the original gateway, dating from 1836, was a large-scale symbolic portrait attributed to Te Taupua Te Whanoa. Now in the Rotorua Museum Te Whare Taonga o Te Arawa, it shows Pūkākī, a renowned eighteenth-century Ngāti Whakaue warrior and chief, embracing his two sons Wharengaro and Te Rangitākuku. His wife Ngāpuia was originally suspended between his legs but her form was severed when the gateway was taken down. The carving has become iconic, appearing on New Zealand’s twenty-cent coin, and Grant’s sympathetic and accurate rendering of the work is an invaluable historical record of its complete form.
Matiu Baker, Mark Stocker, Rebecca Rice