Author(s): Gregory O'Brien

Art & Design

A magnificent colourful monograph from the series of major New Zealnd artists by Ron Sang Publications.

Over a career spanning four decades, Pat Hanly proposed a new manner of looking at New Zealand - the land and its people. His art heralded new ways of thinking about this country - as a nation that belonged to the young and the adventurous, to the dreamers and to those who could see the vital place the island nation could have within Polynesia and the broader Pacific. Featuring nearly 300 colour plates and over 50 photographs, this large-format publication offers an unprecendented record of Hanly's effervescent, brilliant paintings, many of which have achieved iconic status. Alongside an essay by Gregory O'Brien which focuses on the artist's immensely productive relationship with the city of Auckland, the book includes illuminating memoirs by four of Hanly's closes friends. An annotated and profusely illustrated chronolgy provides an overview of the artist's life, while sampling critical and art historical reactions along the way. The large-scale reproductions offer an emphatic account of what must stand as the most vivid, animated body of paintings by a single artist to have yet hailed from these shores.