Overview
It is unusual in this day and age for an important artist to make tapestry one of their main forms of expression. However, this is what Gordon Crook has done.
He was born in Richmond, England in 1921. His parents separated when he was four, and he grew up in Sussex, going from foster home to foster home, and then to boarding school. For young Crook, art was an escape from the flux of his life - something stable to hold onto. At seventeen, he joined the merchant navy, and then served in the RAF during World War II.
After the war, he received a grant to study art at St Martin's School, London. Then, in 1948, he began study at the Central School of Art, also in London. The Central School was noted for its innovative work in textile. Crook graduated with a degree in textile design, and began tutoring there. Soon he became a lecturer. For twenty-two years he lived in London, teaching at the Central School and the Royal College of Art, and working as a freelance designer. He also exhibited ceramics, drawings, paintings, and tapestries. Sometimes he wove his own tapestries; other times he would create the design and hire an expert to weave it for him.
He was a private man, who didn't particularly enjoy the social scene, and in 1972, at the age of 51, he moved to New Zealand to pursue a quieter life.
His first commissions in this country were small; he designed book covers, decorated a coffee house, and produced stage sets. His big break came in 1979, when he was asked to design twenty banners for the New Zealand Embassy in Washington. To this day they are an impressive sight, each five metres high, and one metre wide, combining South Pacific imagery and heraldry, and hanging at intervals from the rafters of the Great Hall.
Between 1981 and 1983, Crook produced twelve even bigger banners for the entrance foyer of the Michael Fowler Centre. He also made ten panels, seven metres by seven metres, for the outer wall of the auditorium. The theme for both was 'Definitely Wellington'. He went on to design tapestries for Foreign Affairs in both Tonga and Samoa.
As well as his fabric banners and tapestries, Crook is known for his prints and collages. 'Because I work in a lot of media, people can't get to grips with my work. The point is that oneself as an artist remains consistent. My object is to end up with something that I haven't seen before, to get an image which I could not have imagined'. (1)
Reference
• Slade, Colin. (1995). Web of Images. The Press. 26 July.
Text originally published in Tai Awatea, Te Papa's onfloor multimedia database (1998).