Auckland man 'stunned' to find out he was boy in exhibition photo taken 55 years ago

John Kearns said he was stunned to find a photo of himself as a boy on exhibition at the Auckland Art Gallery. Photo / Dean Purcell

A chance find has stunned a man who discovered he was the boy in a picture taken 55 years ago which is now being exhibited at the Auckland Art Gallery.

John Kearns, 58, said his wife was looking through the photos from a photography exhibition in the gallery by renowned photographer Max Oettli when she spotted a picture taken at a fish shop in 1967 with a boy who looked like Kearns in it.

"My wife knew that my family owned a fish shop at the time and asked if that's me," Kearns said.

"The fish shop wasn't the one owned by mum and dad, but the boy in the picture - that's definitely me. I have other photos with me wearing that same trousers and top."

Max Oettli is a Swiss-New Zealand photographer known within New Zealand particularly for his photographs taken in the late 1960s and early 70s in Auckland.

Some of the photos at the exhibition, including this one with Kearns, have not been seen in public before.

Max Oettli's photo of a boy at the fish shop taken in 1967. Photo / Supplied

"I don't ever remember the photo ever being taken, so it came as a real surprise," Kearns said.

"We've been trying to figure out which fish shop it was, because there wasn't many around in Ponsonby in those days. I can think of only about three."

Growing up, Kearns said his family owned a fish shop at the top of Karangahape Rd, close to the Queen St junction.

"We lived at Grey Lynn at the time, before moving to Balmoral and then we built a yacht and then my father and I left New Zealand for Australia, went through Indonesia, Singapore, South America, Africa and I got off the boat in Florida, USA, in 1984," he said.

"I came back to New Zealand and found out I had kidney failure. I started dialysis in 1986, and a year later I had my first transplant, the kidney was donated by my sister."

He then continued working on boats, met his wife and became a father of three daughters.

Kearnes said after three kidney transplants, he stopped working on boats and became a boat broker instead.

"My wife was looking for a book for my daughter and was on the Art Gallery website and saw this exhibition, and saw this photo," he said.

"She said 'it looked like you' and showed it to me, and I looked and said 'it sure does look like me'. Then I found other photographs of me wearing the same pants, then I said 'that's definitely me'."

John Kearns said the photo brought him back to his 'happy time'. Photo / Dean Purcell

Although thrilled, Kearns said he has shared this with no one else except his daughters.

He said the photo took him back "to a happy and carefree time".

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki Director Kirsten Lacy said during a decade of massive urban and social change, Auckland-based Oettli worked as one of New Zealand's most innovative contemporary photographers.

'Max Oettli's evocative vintage photographs are of great significance to the social history of Tāmaki Makaurau and we're delighted to exhibit these at Auckland Art Gallery," Lacy said.

"They provide a glimpse into the private and public life of Aucklanders during in the 60s and 70s and, I've no doubt, stir up many memories for visitors."

This was a period was when independent photography was developing rapidly and Oettli ensured that his camera was a "creative mirror".

He avoided traditional picture-making, preferring the realism of expressive black and white photography.

The exhibition "Visible Evidence" revealed the intersections between private and public lives of Auckland, and possible only because of Oettli's gift of his vintage photographs.