8:09 Damian Skinner - Profile of dyspeptic, influential émigré artist Theo Schoon
Damian Skinner
Photo: Victoria University
Damian Skinner is an art historian, writer and former museum curator. He is interested in the history of cultural contact between Māori and Pākehā and the relationship between art and politics in Aotearoa New Zealand. His latest book is a profile of irascible émigré artist Theo Schoon, called Theo Schoon: A Biography. The book, says Skinner, shines a light on Schoon's significant contribution to art and culture in New Zealand, not least his championing of Māori art.
Theo Schoon: art and life
A self-portrait of Schoon taken in the studio of Bell’s Camera House, Wellington, circa 1942. Schoon estate collection.
Schoon with one of his Beautiful-Indies paintings in his basement studio in the Wellington YMCA, circa 1942. Te Papa Tongarewa, CA000841/001/0047
Dancer, circa 1946. Theo Schoon gave this painting to John Money when they first met in Christchurch in 1946. Painting by Theo Schoon. Eastern Southland Gallery, Gore, JMC 02.218.
Stalagmites - Stalactites, 1964. Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, purchased 1989
Schoon painted this version of kōwhaiwhai sometime in the late 1950s, when he and Gordon Walters were exchanging ideas and working out how they could make modern art based on Māori designs like the koru. Painting by Theo Schoon. Auckland Art Gallery, 1990/2.
Theo Schoon in his house at Home Street in 1962, surrounded by gourds, a sculpture made from driftwood collected at Taupō, gourd puppets and painted panels. Photograph by Bernie Hill. Hocken Library, MS-1294/011.
Gourds decorated with designs based on tā moko patterns were Schoon’s first experiments in gourd carving. Quite often he would display them against backdrops painted with patterns based on tā moko or kōwhaiwhai. Photograph by Theo Schoon, circa 1960. Te Papa Tongarewa, CA000840/001/0048.
Schoon, in clothing of his own design made from batik cloth, poses with a mask of Rangda, processed July 1978. Photograph by Theo Schoon. Te Papa Tongarewa, CA000841/001/0045.
