Case 3
- Sowing Seeds of Learning
Roger Hardie, “‘…the buds of flowering’. An archive list of Department of Education art & crafts specialist staff 1938-1989. Auckland: The Author, 2005. SPRH 700.710993
Hotere attended secondary school at St. Peter’s Māori College (later Hāto Pētera), Auckland, studying subjects such as Latin, Māori, Religious Instruction, Mathematics. He was deemed sporty (liking softball) and a ‘dab hand at drawing’. He was dux of his year. He maintained that the system ‘successfully drummed every bit of religion out of me’ (O’Sullivan, 35). He then went on to Teachers’ Training College, Section K, which had a strong emphasis on arts and craft. He was then chosen to work in the Arts and Crafts specialist team. A dapper Ralph Hotere (back row, extreme right) looks out at the camera in his third-year class photograph of 1952. Colleagues Jeanne Bensemann enthused him about European art; Kathie Harrison (Kāterina Mataira) was a fellow artist; fellow exhibitor John Kim is there too. Hardie’s ‘…the buds of flowering’ is a limited edition of 260; a presentation copy to Hotere.
Roger Hardie, “‘…the buds of flowering’. An archive list of Department of Education art & crafts specialist staff 1938-1989. Auckland: The Author, 2005. SPRH 700.710993
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Roger Hardie, “‘…the buds of flowering’. An archive list of Department of Education art & crafts specialist staff 1938-1989. Auckland: The Author, 2005. SPRH 700.710993
Roger Hardie, “‘…the buds of flowering’. An archive list of Department of Education art & crafts specialist staff 1938-1989. Auckland: The Author, 2005. SPRH 700.710993
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Carol Henderson, A blaze of colour. Gordon Tovey. Artist educator. Christchurch: Hazard Press, 1998. SPRH 709.2 COV (HEN)
Gordon Tovey (1901-1974) was the national supervisor of arts and crafts in the Education Department who, in 1953, recruited Hotere as an itinerant arts and craft adviser for the Far North. Tovey was Hotere’s mentor, one who went to extraordinary lengths to enable his ‘golden boy’ to achieve. The part that he played was acknowledged by Hotere: ‘Tove was the first person who in a really incredible way got me to look at life. Echoes of those days are always there with me. Even when I paint now, his use of imagination, his landscape and sky fit together… something of his rubbed off.’ He later stated: ‘Tove made it possible for me’ (O’Sullivan, 56). Carol Henderson is the daughter of Gordon and Heather Tovey.
Carol Henderson, A blaze of colour. Gordon Tovey. Artist educator. Christchurch: Hazard Press, 1998. SPRH 709.2 COV (HEN)
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Ralph Hotere, Manuscript entitled ‘Trees’, c. 1950s. Hotere Ephemera
While at Kaikohe, or visiting such towns as Pukepoto, Paparore, and Ōtura, Hotere would have been in the class-room, talking to students on how best to approach and improve their art. The two sheets (of four) on display are a rare survivor of a lesson plan he delivered on the subject of pencil drawing all kinds of trees. Reading through ‘Trees’ reveals some of the basic precepts of drawing from life that Hotere himself would have learned. Imparting such knowledge to budding artists was obviously something that he enjoyed.
