Restoration work on damaged artworks found abandoned in an attic has shone a new light on a vital part of Northland's heritage and what was a turning point for modern art in New Zealand.
The works will be celebrated in the next major exhibition at Whangarei Art Museum, Salon to Marae: First Glimmerings of a Maori Modernism. Included will be a collection of Northland artists and the first Maori graduate of a fine art school in New Zealand, Selwyn Te Ngareatua Wilson.
Salon to Marae will also feature paintings, ceramics and drawings from the 1950s and 1960s by other Northland Maori artists Clive Arlidge and Ralph Hotere.
Salon to Marae includes 14 paintings and drawings by Wilson - "the founding father of Maori Modernism" - which have not been shown since first exhibited at the National Art Gallery in 1951. The "attic" works were acquired by WAM in 2009.
Several had been "savagely" mistreated and one canvas had paintings on both sides.