Artist Don Binney celebrated at University of Auckland
27 October 2023
Don Binney was an alumnus and former staff member. His writings, photos and artworks have been collected by Greg O'Brien and presented in a magnificent new book.
Around 100 guests attended the launch of writer, painter and art curator Gregory O’Brien’s book, Don Binney: Flight Path at Old Government House (OGH) on 19 October.
A who’s who of the arts world heard about Greg’s seven-year labour of love to document the works of renowned artist, alumnus and former Elam staff member Don Binney, in Greg’s 400-page, 2.5kg, large-format book.
Jacqueline Fahey, Dick Frizzell, Jenny Bornholdt, Liz Thomson, Doris de Pont, John Reynolds, John Pule, Distinguished Professor Brian Boyd, Ian Wedde, Fred Graham and Marilyn Sainty were among those in the crowd.
The exhibition for the Auckland University Press (AUP) book launch was curated by Associate Professor Linda Tyler, assisted by University of Auckland Art Collection adviser Madeleine Gifford. AUP publishing assistant Lauren Donald thanked Don’s wife Philippa and daughter Mary for their support during the book’s creation, adding, “It’s an absolute pleasure to see this book out in the world.”
Linda said OGH was a fitting venue for the book’s launch, especially as Don features in a portrait hanging over the entrance to the kitchen, being as he was a stalwart member of the senior common room club from days gone by.
Linda, who is an associate professor of museums and cultural heritage in the Faculty of Arts, said she was pleased Don Binney: Flight Path had “reached the runway” in time for entry into the next Ockham Book Awards. “I'm sure it will just take off in the illustrated nonfiction category,” she said.
“I’m full of admiration for the way in which Greg has managed to plait together the story of how the iconic paintings that we know so well have been made and received, with the story of Don's life and with his love of words and theatre … as well as his sensitivity to his surroundings, particularly Te Henga.”
Thank goodness Don never took to email where all his words would have vanished into the ether.
Greg, an Arts alumnus, is well-known as a poet, painter and editor. He told the audience at the launch that he spent his childhood sleeping under a 1963 Don Binney artwork of two shining cuckoos which he said was “an inspired gift from my parents”.
“I feel Don's shining cuckoo must have come down off the wall at some point and nested inside me.”
In Don Binney: Flight Path, Greg presents the artist’s letters, journals and other writings in the first full-length monograph of Don Binney. There was a previous book, in 2003, by Damian Skinner, featuring 75 illustrations and Greg thanked Damian for making his material and interviews available for Greg’s book.
“We have the best possible proof of the importance of keeping things, in Flight Path,” Linda said of the inclusion of the artist’s letters, journals and even Xeroxes in Greg’s book.
“Greg has just made excellent use of the carbon copies Don kept in his letters … including those he wrote to his mother and to his first wife, [historian] Judith Binney. Greg also quotes in its entirety an interesting letter, which Don never sent, addressed to the major-domos of the Auckland art world, announcing his intention to exhibit elsewhere in the future. Thank goodness Don never took to email where all his words would have vanished into the ether.”
As Don loved to write, there are lengthy disquisitions on the changing seasons, the state of the art world in England and New Zealand, detailed descriptions of landscapes as well as the local bird life, all of which he penned in capital letters.
I feel Don's shining cuckoo must have come down off the wall at some point and nested inside me.
He said Don Binney: Flight Path is a reciprocal gesture to Don, whom he first met at AUP Christmas drinks at OGH when Greg was a “young and bushy-tailed poet”.
“I remember he and his poet friend Kendrick Smithyman talking eloquently and brilliantly in the corner … in ornate and erudite paragraphs … the likes of them may never be seen or heard again.”
Later he felt his spirit at Te Henga Bethell’s Beach, the artist’s tūrangawaewae and where he painted for many years until the late 1970s. “Beside the seaward track, there was a pohutukawa tree known as the Binney tree. There was the Binney beach house, the Binney gate, and the precise spot on Sunset Point where he painted some of his greatest works, Binney birds glided overhead. From the start, his paintings were inseparable from our experience and our accumulated memory of the place.”
Don Binney died in 2012 and a couple of years later, art dealer Barbara Speedy asked Greg if he would consider writing a book about him. Greg prevaricated for a year or two before meeting Don’s widow Philippa Binney and daughter Mary, who encouraged and helped him through the process.
“Setting forth, it felt like I was keeping a rendezvous with a ghost I already knew pretty well,” said Greg. “But I would get to know him a lot better. The highly opinionated, impassioned, grumpy, at times infuriating, but also kindly, likeable ghost. Six or seven years later, here we are.”
Denise Montgomery