The Rangitikei River
Watercolour on paper
53.5 x 72 cm
Signed lower right
EXHIBITED
Jonathan Grant Galleries, Peter McIntyre Exhibition, 2009
ILLUSTRATED
(2009) Peter McIntyre [Exhibition Catalogue]. Auckland, New Zealand: Jonathan Grant Galleries.
“Years ago I went far up the Rangitikei beyond Taihape to visit my friend David Russell whose farm at that time was as far as you could drive up the river into the bush.
The river is so deep between high papa cliffs that down at the bottom where the river flows there is only a sort of twilight, even on a sunny day. Once I crossed the gorge at a wider place in the bush in a tray slung on a logger’s wire rope, and we sat in mid-air watching a large trout feed in the river below where a patch of sun broke through the overhanging bush. From that time on I have painted those lovely cliffs that are the most paintable of all colours - white.
From our cottage there are at least three routes by which we can return home to Wellington. The Taihape route twists and bends but offers its reward in the stretches of of my beloved Rangitikei River. For years I carried on a love affair in paint with this river, wandering in its valley, prowling the fields above it, waiting for the sun to light the splendour of its white papa cliffs.”
Peter McIntyre. (1964). Peter McIntyre’s New Zealand.
