Papa cliff pool with bathers, Taihape

Douglas MacDiarmid was living in London when he painted this work. Boarding with fellow New Zealander, the writer D’Arcy Cresswell, MacDiarmid was living in a gloomy attic room, in a city just emerging from the Second World War. Homesick, he painted this scene from memory – conjuring the clay banks of the Mangapapa river, near where he grew up in Taihape.

Douglas MacDiarmid first travelled to Europe in 1946 as a young artist. He returned briefly to Wellington in 1949, bringing this painting with him. It was included in MacDiarmid’s first commercial exhibition, held at his friend Helen Hitchings’ Bond Street gallery in 1950. In 1952 MacDiarmid moved to Paris, where he was based for the rest of his life.

For more information about MacDiarmid’s work and life see: Anna Cahill, Colours of a life. The life and times of Douglas MacDiarmid (Auckland, 2018)