Loading Docs 2016 - The Colourist

It was very important for people to have photographs of New Zealand on their walls in those days. And once Whites started selling, they went berserk everywhere. In my view, everybody bought them because there was nothing else like them at the time. There were some prints of Van Gogh’s sunflowers, Brugal’s paintings, Constable’s hay wain – but suddenly Whites was different. It was real, and the country we lived in, and hand-coloured. It absolutely took off.

– Grace Rawson, on the popularity of hand-coloured images of New Zealand

The Colourist pays tribute to a woman whose contribution to both New Zealand’s art and its history is largely unknown. It’s also a celebration of a meticulous hand-applied craft, rendered virtually obsolete in a world obsessed by the immediacy of the digital image.

– Directors Greg Wood and Peter Alsop