Dates

• Existence: 1919 - 1987

Biography

Colin McCahon is regarded as a major Australasian modernist painter. His works, especially later works with their scale and striking written texts and numbers (often Biblical texts) have iconic status in New Zealand. Perhaps the most famous of his works, Victory Over Death 2, was donated to the Australian National Art Gallery in 1978 by the New Zealand Government. The Prime Minister at the time, Robert Muldoon, uttered the immortal words I didn’t know we disliked the Australians so much when seeing what was being donated.

McCahon was born in Timaru in 1919 and educated in Oamaru and Dunedin. Following art school, he pursued the life of a painter supporting himself and his family with seasonal work, gardening, labouring and later as a curator at the Auckland Art Gallery.

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