Colin McCahon (New Zealand, 1919-1987) Uruwera #7

signed and dated 'McCahon Feb-March 69' (upper left); further signed, titled and dated again 'Colin McCahon/Uruwera/Feb 1969/7' (verso) sand and synthetic polymer paint Unframed: 30.3 x 28.8 cm. (11 7/8 x 11 3/8 in.) Framed: 32 x 31 cm. (12 5/8 x 12 1/4 in.)Notes: Born in 1919, Colin McCahon both endured and utilised New Zealand’s geographical isolation to become the country's most significant twentieth-century artist. Over a 45-year career, he fundamentally redefined New Zealand’s artistic landscape, traversing subjects from landscape and figuration to abstraction and an innovative use of painted text. By adapting international modernist principles to a distinctively local context, McCahon grappled with questions of faith, environmentalism, and cultural identity. Ultimately concerned with the human condition, his work profoundly influenced not only subsequent generations of painters but also how New Zealanders perceive their own environment. As an extensive landscape painter, McCahon drew significant inspiration from the writings of New Zealand geologist Sir Charles A. Cotton. Cotton’s 1942 scientific text, The Geomorphology of New Zealand, stripped the environment of built features and irrelevant objects to examine underlying geological processes. McCahon applied this precise structural reduction to his art, using it to uncover the spiritual basis of the land. He deliberately avoided picturesque representations, describing his resulting landscapes as "often stark and empty," an aesthetic choice designed to raise questions about the human histories of these seemingly unpopulated spaces. Uruwera #7 perfectly exemplifies this structural and spiritual inquiry. The work focuses on the Urewera region, a sparsely populated, heavily forested, and rugged hill country in the North Island that holds immense historical, political, and spiritual importance to the Tūhoe people. By mixing sand with synthetic polymer paint, McCahon moves beyond visual representation to literally embed the physical matter of the earth into the artwork. Despite its intimate scale, the painting commands a quiet, monumental presence. McCahon constructs the terrain through bold, reductive forms, utilising the granular density of the sand and an earthy, light-absorbing palette to reflect the harsh, ancient reality of the landscape. Crucially, Uruwera #7 does not stand alone; it forms part of a broader, politically charged series developed throughout the late 1960s and 1970s in which McCahon explicitly addressed Māori subjects and concerns. The Urewera region is the traditional home of the Tūhoe people, who were not signatories to the Treaty of Waitangi and whose geographically isolated territory was one of the last to be claimed by the Crown during nineteenth-century colonisation. McCahon’s work actively engages with this contested history. This engagement with the Urewera region occurred during a critical transition in McCahon’s practice. Following periods working at the Auckland City Art Gallery and lecturing at the Elam School of Fine Arts, this 1969 work emerged just before his most productive years. In 1970, McCahon devoted himself to painting full-time, ushering in a prolific decade that firmly established his distinctive voice. Today, his enduring legacy is cemented by the presence of his work in prestigious public institutions and major global exhibitions. Notable milestones include his second retrospective at the Auckland City Art Gallery in 1972 and the major international retrospective A Question of Faith at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Furthermore, McCahon's work has been featured at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, and the iconic 1999 group exhibition Toi Toi Toi: Three Generations of Artists from New Zealand at the Museum Fridericianum in Kassel, Germany.