One of eleven children, Hone Papita Raukura (Ralph) Hotere was
born of Maori heritage (Aupouri tribe) in Taikarawa, Mitimiti, in
Northland in 1931. He was educated at Auckland's Hato Petera
College and trained as a specialist art educator at Auckland
Teacher's Training College before attending King Edward Technical
College, Dunedin, where he studied under the influential painter,
poet and educator Gordon Tovey.
Following his graduation in 1953, Hotere worked in the Auckland
and Northland region as a schools art advisor for the Education
Department. In 1961 he was awarded a New Zealand Art Societies
Fellowship and took up study at the Central School of Art in London
under prominent colour field painter William Turnbull. This was
quickly followed in 1962 by the receipt of the Karolyi
International Fellowship for study in Vence, France. Between 1963
and 1964 Hotere travelled and painted around Europe, during which
time he visited the Sangro River war cemetery in Italy where his
brother and fellow service men from the WWII Maori Battalion were
buried, a pilgrimage that resulted in his Sangro Series of
1962-64. Europe in the early 1960's was plagued with political
upheaval and Hotere's experience of life in this part of the world
and his concern with the events of the time fomented a voice in his
work that continued throughout his career.
Returning to New Zealand in 1965, Hotere settled in Port
Chalmers, Dunedin, where he continued to work. During this period
in the late 1960's, Hotere began to attract serious interest with
his initial Black series (first shown in a solo show in
Auckland in 1968), a series whose essence has threaded itself
throughout his career. These works ranged from starkly minimal
cruciforms on canvas to finely drawn lines in enamel lacquer on
board. The use of black as a defining element in his work has
come to be one of the characteristics for which Hotere is most well
known, notwithstanding the myriad of associations and connotations
that the colour black raises of its own accord.
Around 1972, Hotere began to focus on expressive elements to his
work that commentator Warwick Brown has noted 'move[d] his work
from pure abstraction towards the sort of semi-abstract narrative
that Colin McCahon was then using.'1 These expressive
elements encouraged and reinforced Hotere's artistic 'voice' and
Hotere began to develop works in relation to political and social
issues important to him, including the Aramoana series protesting
against the proposed aluminium smelter in Port Chalmers; the Black
Union Jack series, relating to the controversial tour of New
Zealand by the South African rugby team in 1981; and the Black
Rainbow series, in reaction to the 1985 sinking of the Greenpeace
ship, the Rainbow Warrior.
Hotere utilised text in his painting and lithography from an
early stage and his relationship with the New Zealand literary
world remained constant throughout his career, evidenced by his
publishing four drawings in literary journal Landfall 78
and accepting the task of designing the cover for Landfall
84. Moreover, the use of words as imagery in his work
and his affinity for text, language and 'voice' in art saw him fall
naturally into collaborations with many notable NZ artists and
poets including Bill Culbert, John Reynolds, Bill Manhire and Hone
Tuwhare. Many of his series, such as Pine (based on the
words of Hone Tuwhare's poem of the same name), celebrate his
friendships with well-known New Zealand writers and document both
artistic and personal dialogue between the two disciplines of
poetry and painting and their exponents.
In 1994 Hotere received an Honorary Doctorate from the
University of Otago and in 2006 was awarded the Te Taumata Award by
Te Waka Toi recognising outstanding leadership and service to Maori
arts. He is now recognised as one of New Zealand's most significant
living artists and his works have become increasingly sought after
by both national and international collectors.
1 Warwick Brown, 100 New Zealand
Paintings by 100 New Zealand Artists,
Godwit Publishing, Auckland (1995)