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Ralph Hotere

Hone Papita Raukura “Ralph” Hotere (11 August 1931 – 24 February 2013)  is widely regarded as one of New Zealand’s most important artists. Born in Taikarawa, of Te Aupōuri and Te Rarawa descent, he spent his childhood in Mitimiti, Te Tai Tokerau, a remote kainga near Hokianga Harbour on the west coast of the far North. However, he lived most of his life in a Carey’s Bay, a fishing village in Port Chalmers, Otago.

He was educated at Hato Petera College and Auckland Teachers’ College, before moving to Dunedin in 1952 to specialise in art. During this early period in Otago he also completed compulsory military service, qualifying as a pilot at the Initial Training School of Taieri aerodrome. After a spell in the Bay of Islands as an arts advisor for the Education Department, in 1961 Hotere was awarded a New Zealand Art Societies Fellowship that allowed him to travel to Europe to study painting and graphic design at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London.  The following year he gained a Karolyi International Fellowship to work in a communal artist studio in Vence, South France. This was a pivotal opportunity in his early career. From there he spent the next two and a half years travelling and exhibiting in Europe.

Hotere returned to Aotearoa New Zealand in 1965 with an appreciation of international art movements, and developed a formal reductivism and minimalist approach to his own painting.In 1969 he was awarded the prestigious Frances Hodgkins Fellowship at the University of Otago, Dunedin. Hotere subsequently settled in Dunedin, making his home and studio in  Carey’s Bay in 1972. In this environment he created some his most enduring works.

Although he called himself a painter his extensive oeuvre included sculpture, installations, drawings and prints. Ralph Hotere was very politically active and his works became a platform for his message. From the 1970s, the words of poets often entered his work, particularly lines from Hone Tuwhare, Cilla McQeen and Bill Manhire. He also began working with other artists, something he continued to do throughout his career. Notable collaborations were with Bill Culbert, John Reynolds and Mary McFarlane.

In 1994 Hotere was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Otago, in 2003 the Arts Foundation Icon Award, and the Te Taumata Award from Te Waka Toi in 2007. In the 2012 New Year Honours, Hotere was appointed to the Order of New Zealand for services to New Zealand.

He exhibited extensively throughout New Zealand and overseas, significantly at the XI Sao Paulo Biennale, Brazil 1971, the Sydney Biennale in 1984; Pacific Rim Diaspora, Long Beach Museum LA, 1990; Headlands toured by the MCA Sydney, 1992; and Toi, toi, toi, at the Auckland City Art Gallery, 1999. In 1973 a survey exhibition of Ralph Hotere’s work toured New Zealand, and in 1997 Out the Black Window, a major exhibition of Hotere’s work with poets was mounted and toured by the Wellingtion City Art Gallery. The Dunedin Public Art Gallery toured Black Light, an exhibition of Hotere’s large scale works, during 2000. A selection of his printed works, Empty of Shadows and Making a Shadow: the lithographs of Ralph Hotere, was shown at Christchurch Art Gallery in 2005. In 2020 and 2021 Dunedin Public Art Gallery and Christchurch Art Gallery joined forces to present the major survey exhibition Ralph Hotere:Ātete (to resist).

The work of Ralph Hotere is represented in public collections throughout New Zealand including the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, Dunedin Public Art Gallery and the Hocken Collections, Dunedin, as well as many public and private collections around the world.

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Exhibitions:

2021 – Round Midnight & other lithographs