Cook voyage works for show

Paintings by William Hodges, the artist on James Cook's second great voyage, will be displayed here this winter - some of them making their second trip to New Zealand.

The paintings go on show in the Auckland Art Gallery for almost three months from June 3.

The travelling exhibition - William Hodges, 1744-1797: The Art of Exploration - is now at Yale University in Connecticut.

Organised by the National Maritime Museum, London, it is considered to be a treasure-trove of some of the earliest paintings of New Zealand and the Maori.

Among them are many that were on long-term display in Auckland in the early 1960s.

Then Prime Minister Keith Holyoake wrote to his British counterpart Harold Macmillan in 1961 asking if New Zealand could keep the art. Letters released by Britain's National Archive two years ago quoted Holyoake as saying Hodges' paintings were not up to scratch as art, but had historical significance in New Zealand.

In effect he said, "Could we have them please?"

Macmillan was at first keen to grant the request to smooth over a political row over import duties but the request angered the National Maritime Museum directors, - and the owners, the Admiralty.

The final answer to Holyoake was "no" and the paintings went back to Britain.

Hodges was a central figure in disseminating visual knowledge of the world in a great era of European geographical discovery, according to the maritime museum's website.

- NZPA