Friends farewell much-loved artist

By LINDA HERRICK


The day before Pat Hanly's death on Monday, he rang friends to say how pleased he was with the Colin McCahon documentary that screened on television last weekend.

He was in a characteristically generous mood. As someone who'd known McCahon well, Hanly had been filmed for the programme.

But because of the effects on his speech of the advanced Huntingdon's disease afflicting him over the past few years, the producers cut him out.

Sydney dealer Martin Browne, who co-wrote the script for the documentary and appeared in it, was worried Hanly might be offended by his excision.

Not so, says his former dealer and close friend of four decades, Barry Lett, who spoke to Hanly on the phone on what turned out to be the night before his death.

"Of course he didn't even mention that, and that was typically Pat. It was at his own expense in a way but there's a wonderful example of his generosity."

Over the past few days, friends and family have been able to sit with Hanly lying at rest at his Mt Eden home and reflect on the terrific times they have had with him. The anecdotes are endless, and there have been plenty of laughter and tears.

Today's funeral at St-Matthew-in-the-City will see a huge turnout, with friends speaking about the man who vitalised their lives, and singer Don McGlashan performing the Muttonbirds' hit Anchor Me.

Hanly's death means farewelling someone who has made a considerable contribution to painting and printmaking in New Zealand for more than 40 years.

His body of work is so significant that Auckland Art Gallery alone holds 94 Hanly paintings and drawings in its collection.

His work is instantly recognisable for its qualities of bursting energy and drama. Lett identifies Hanly's career as having two phases: the earlier stage when he absorbed some influences from European modern masters such as Chagall, Matisse and Francis Bacon; the second when he moved on from all of that.

"He had this ability to free up in the second part of his career and at the same time have this sense of exactness. He came up with his own way of seeing, his own insights, and that was very relaxed and free.

"He never lost that sure touch, which was based on a skill honed on earlier traditional work."

Professor Michael Dunn, head of Elam School of Fine Arts at Auckland University and author of the substantial book New Zealand Painting, believes Hanly made his greatest impact when he returned to Auckland in the early 1960s after his time abroad.

"He brought a bright, young, contemporary feel to his practice that injected vitality and relevance into the local art scene. He combined that with the social skills to get people talking about art and life in a relaxed party environment."

In Dunn's estimation, Hanly's Figures in Light series of 1964, admired by McCahon among many others, "remains among his finest achievement, with its freshness of vision and its strong decorative colour".

Hanly was a great supporter of other people's art, and equally vociferous about what he didn't like.

"If he saw someone's work he thought was good, he was very enthusiastic. He was very generous with his time and appraisal of other people's work," says Lett, whose gallery in Upper Queen St opened with a Hanly show in 1964.

"Conversely, though, I've heard him groaning about the attention some people got who he thought were over-rated. He could be quite stroppy. He wasn't impressed by pretentiousness - he thought a lot of the stuff being promoted was pretty vacant."

It was important to Hanly that art be perceived as a legitimate profession.

"He was committed to the idea of working as an artist. He felt that the idea of getting art out to a wider public was very important, so when he saw someone like an artist behaving badly he wasn't happy about it."

Hanly was also committed to the anti-nuclear movement, taking part in the protest fleets against the American nuclear submarines when they visited in the mid-70s, events that inspired his iconic Pintado paintings.

Dunn says Hanly's passing "marks the end of an era, especially for art in Auckland. He helped lay the foundation for the lively contemporary art scene we have today".

Like many of Hanly's close friends, Lett says he finds himself "baffled by the idea that suddenly Pat's not going to be there. I feel a sense that the world is diminished."

* Auckland Art Gallery will host a talk by friends of Pat Hanly on Sunday, October 3, at 3pm.