Richard Moorhead with a self-portrait he painted when he was 19.
Richard Moorhead with a self-portrait he painted when he was 19.
The latest exhibition at Central Hawke's Bay Museum is a visual tour of artist Richard Moorhead's life in paint ... from his first paintings as a child in Tikokino to some of his latest works.
Moorhead, who turns 80 in July, grew up in Tikokino. He was severely asthmatic asa child and missed a lot of school, bedridden.
"To stop me asking 'what can I do?' my mother threw paper, pencils and paints at me," Moorhead says.
He copied pictures and one of those first paintings, a copy of Constable's Flatford Mill that he did as a 10-year-old, is in the exhibition, as is a self-portrait he painted at 19, when he was first made an Artist Member of the Hawke's Bay Art Gallery and Museum. He has a painting in the permanent collection there.
Moorhead was also chairman of Otane Arts and Crafts, current chairman of the Keirunga Artists Committee, a founding member of the Norsewear Art Award Trust and part of the Community Arts and the Regional Arts Council, as a Government appointee. He has also been a member of the Wellington Watercolour Society and is a member of Watercolour New Zealand.
