May 16, 2019
Historian of bicultural art partnership Roger Blackley dies
Art historian Roger Blackley, whose work brought a new appreciation of the way early painters like Charles Goldie and Gottfried Lindauer had worked in partnership with Māori, has died at the age of 65.
Dr Blackley was due to speak at the Auckland City Art Gallery on Saturday as part of the Writers Festival about his latest book Galleries of Māoriland.
In that book he argues that Māoriland was not just a term to be associated with Pākehā settlers appropriating Māori history and culture for settler purposes, but that Māori also had a stake in the process of romanticisation.
Auckland Gallery curator Ron Brownson says the book is a brilliant and unique contribution to the understanding of New Zealand’s cultural history.
The Goldie exhibition curated by Dr Blackley set attendance records at the gallery and was a major work not only of scholarship but of partnership with the descendants of the painter’s subjects.
The funeral for Dr Blackley, who was associate professor of art history at Victoria University, will be in Wellington at St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church on the Terrace at 2pm next Wednesday.
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