Sign In / Register
Mangawhai Museum is privileged to be able to present to the district a special exhibition of the life and works of the late John Foster, a local farmer and artist. He lived most of his life on a farm near Wellsford and spent several years living in Mangawhai Heads. John was a prolific painter and printmaker. He created 15 large murals, several hundred small paintings and many prints. He had over 50 exhibitions of his work at commercial and public art galleries, and he was the subject of two Country Calendar episodes and was on the Holmes programme. Excerpts from these will be part of the display.
John’s style captures the essence of rural and beach life in his huge colourful works. This is not primarily an art exhibition, it is the story of a man’s life and how he captured the world around him. The size of the murals has meant that the museum has concentrated on two – Picnic on the Beach and Four Seasons on the Farm – but visitors will certainly get an understanding of the volume of his work, and many paintings and prints are also featured.
However, he did not achieve the commercial success he deserved and part of the reason for this was perhaps the sheer scale of his finished murals – up to 20 metres wide and more than two metres high. One of his murals was displayed at the Commonwealth Games Village and later at Auckland Airport.
All good museums refresh their displays over a period of years, but we decided to try to have special exhibitions changing over a much shorter time. In May, when our first exhibition ‘War Comes to Mangawhai’ ended, work had already started on our new special exhibition.
Mangawhai Museum is now well into its second year of operation and it has been great to see the steady growth of school and tour groups visiting us. The displays include early settler life, but there are other stories covering events that are unique to Mangawhai, from tales of defying authority to German raiders in Bream Bay during World War II.
The displays at Mangawhai Museum were designed and built by Chris Curry, a professional museum designer so this means the pressure is on for the special exhibitions to meet a high standard. We are lucky enough to have had a team of volunteers with the right mix of skills, but a good exhibition is expensive to set up so we are also grateful for the help of Pub Charities.
A Life With Colour starts at Mangawhai Museum on Saturday July 16.
