March 14, 2023
Selwyn Muru life story told in paint
A survey of the life’s work of leading Māori modernist Selwyn Muru opens today at Pah Homestead in Auckland.
Curator Moana Nepia says there’s a slightly different selection to the paintings shown at the New Zealand Portrait Gallery last year, in a more intimate setting.
The exhibition tries to encompass the range of Muru’s work since the 1950s showing his inters, the diverse communities he worked with, the people whose thoughts and concerns he conveyed in his paintings, his social commentary and his advocacy for his Ngati Kuri people.
“It’s telling the story primarily through his art, that is a wero for us all because so much of it is very thought-provoking and those ideas a very much present in a lot of the work, particularly those that he incorporated text, poetry by Hone Tuwhare and citations from leaders and not just Maori,” Dr Nepia says.
Selwyn MMuru: A Life’s Work is at the Pah Homestead until May 28.