Friday, June 08, 2007

Karl Maugham

For a while I used to go round the various art galleries situated near Princes St and take note of paintings I liked, jot details down in a notebook about them, do a rough sketch of them, and 'add' them to my own personal art gallery. It didn't exist, of course, but I gave myself a budget of several hundred thousand dollars a year, and thought of the gallery as being built near the Ross Creek Reservoir, a place I feel has a great peace and quiet about it.
One of the NZ artists I 'bought' several works by was Karl Maugham. Over a period of several years, I'd come across exhibitions of his work at the Milford Gallery, and always found that his paintings of gardens delighted my eye, and pleased me emotionally. Milford Gallery has another exhibition of his works beginning on the 16th June, and you can see some of the paintings on the Gallery's site at present. I don't know how long they'll be on there, so I can't guarantee that this link will always be useful. Check it out while you can, as there doesn't seem to be any other site on the Net showing his work. You need to be aware that these paintings are large: from memory they're usually a good metre square - probably larger. They overflow with colour (one reason I love them) and they always have the feeling of being jam-packed, even though Maugham controls the colour scheme and layout of the paintings very carefully.
I haven't included an example of his work with this post, as they'll be copyrighted, so do make sure you have a look at the ones Milford has on display.

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