A Homecoming: Two Major Works Return Home

Vivian Trethewey has both a great love and a great eye for art. This former Miss Canada travelled the world and would frequent galleries, acquiring work as she went.  Her interests were varied and tastes spanned genres and continents. Accordingly, her collection reflects her wide-ranging interests and taste. Her passion for art was life long and aided and enjoyed by her wealthy industrialist husband.

In the late 1970’s she travelled to New Zealand to visit family in Christchurch. During a month long visit she happened upon the Peter McLeavey Gallery.  It was late in November when she climbed the stairs on Cuba Street and met Peter, over the next month she  acquired many works from him.  The two key highlights were Colin McCahon’s Jump (E21) and Richard Killeen’s  Wish You Were Here.

Vivian Trethewey took those two works home with her to Vancouver, Canada and now for the first time in 45 years, these two vitally important works have come home.  

Colin McCahon’s Jump (E21) is from 1974. The Jump series was a significant moment in his artistic career and in New Zealand art history more broadly. Vivian purchased the work upon Peter’s suggestion but never displayed it as her children found the painting too austere for their family home. It was kept in a map draw in Canada for the next four decades, hence its pristine condition.

The Jump series was created towards the end of McCahon’s life, as he continued to explore and deepen themes of spirituality, mortality and questions of faith. He was living on the west coast beach of Muriwai, where he would observe the gannet colony at Otakamiro Point. Relentlessly buffeted by strong weather, the fledging gannets would have to make their first attempts at flight here, leaping into the unknown, spreading their wings and hoping to fly. McCahon said he was “interested in the great leap”, we as humans must also take risks, a leap of faith, in order to grow. This jump can also be seen as the leap of faith one must make in the Christian faith, to believe in something you cannot see. We can relate to the experience of standing on a wild, windswept beach, questioning our place in this world.  When confronted with this painting, our eyes follow the black dots with the word Jump, the text part of the experience, but also instruction; terrifying yet liberating. Jump (E21) explores biblical and existential questioning — a hallmark of McCahon’s work. Always relevant, McCahon makes us question, think and reflect. 

It is the same Muriwai location depicted in this work where McCahon’s ashes were eventually scattered 12 years later. This place had been his home and a profound source of inspiration.  

1979 was an exciting time in Richard Killeen’s career, only the year before had he first abandoned the frame, revolutionising his practise to place the cut outs directly onto the wall.

By this time, Peter knows he has critical interest in Killeen's bold new post modern way of working.  He writes to Richard in August of 1979, urging him to send the best and biggest cut outs he has.  On that basis, Richard sends to Peter Seeds Across the Land, Wish You Were Here and Welcome to the South Pacific. Within a few months all these works were sold. The largest of these iconic cut outs, Wish You Were Here, was purchased by Vivian Trethewey. The sense of delight Peter experiences in securing this major sale is articulated beautifully in his correspondence to Richard in April 1980 (see fig 3)

Vivian Trethewey and her family responded to the dynamism and vitality of this work. Her grandaughter Tess, who grew up with it, writes:

Vivian loves the bold simple lines and earthy sculptures of the Inuit, the rugged paintings of Canadian landscapes, and the bronze Reid sculptures telling the stories of the Pacific Northwest people.  However, in other rooms we find cheeky Hockneys, colourful Warhols, delicate bird sketches and many natural stones, burls and carvings bringing the outside in.  As a child I remember my wonder at the bright Killeen pieces arranged in our pavillion  - walking alongside a giraffe, with bright plants, lobsters and swooping red birds around me - it was my own wonderland!  

The pallette is bold with 35 different elements, all around a metre in size.  No longer is the frame signalling to us that we are looking at a depiction of the world, but we are now immersed in the work itself. The separate elements of the painting are free and what composition can be made of the different cut outs is left to the person who hangs them, allowing infinite options. Immersed in this view, the viewer can't help but bring their own associations and their own stories to make sense of the collection in front of them. 

Killeen is a cataloguer, over the course of his career he has amassed thousands of images that appear in his works. Some only once, others over and over again. Like objects in a museum, these first objects used- insects, plants, animals- are presented to us, playing on the way the world is often organised for us, but in this work it is something we must map out and frame for ourselves.

Wish You Were Here marks a pivotal moment in his transition from conventional painting to conceptual and installation art.