January 25, 2024
Selywn Muru a ground breaker for Māori
Te Aupouri and Ngāti Kurī have lost one of their greatest sons.
Artist Selwyn Murupaenga died yesterday afternoon in Auckland surrounded by whanau.
He was 86.
Muru was born in Te Hapua in 1936 and trained at Ardmore Teachers’ College at Papakura, giving up teaching after two years because it didn’t give him time to paint.
Along with contemporaries like Para Matchitt, Ralph Hotere, Elizabeth Ellis and Fred Graham he sought to fuse Māori culture with modernism, proudly wearing the influences of artists like Picasso.
He also forged paths in journalism and both radio and television broadcasting, wrote for stage and screen, and was an accomplished musician.
With Don Selwyn and Brian Kirby, he set up a training programme in Auckland in the 1980s to increase the number of Māori and Pasifika in film and television all levels.
He was a master of whaikōrero, and would often finish his speech by pulling out his ukulele, or reciting a poem by his friend Hone Tuwhare.