Colin McCahon works donated to Forester Gallery

Vase of Flowers (1939) is one of 11 works by Colin McCahon to be displayed at an Oamaru gallery. Pictures / Supplied

The Forester Gallery has been gifted 11 early Colin McCahon works described by Waitaki Mayor Alan McLay as iconic and of international importance.

The drawings, lithographs, watercolour and oil paintings are the centrepiece of a new exhibition, "From Alpha to Beata", which opened at the Oamaru gallery on Wednesday.

Dorothy Stewart, on behalf of the Parsloe Family Trust, presented the works to the gallery's permanent collection at a function at the gallery. The late Beatrice Parsloe was Colin McCahon's sister.

The gallery now has 15 McCahon works, including a major 1967 North Otago landscape gifted by the New Zealand Government.

Waitaki district museums' manager Warwick Smith described the exhibition as one of the most significant in the gallery's more than 20-year history.

Mr Smith said McCahon drew considerable inspiration from the forms of North Otago landscapes.

The artist's links with North Otago were well established. McCahon lived in Oamaru with his parents and attended Waitaki Boys' High School. He participated in summer schools held in Kurow and, in the early 1970s, exhibited with the North Otago Art Society.

The gift was "of immense importance for this and future generations of visitors to the gallery and for researchers and students of McCahon," Mr Smith said. "It will also be an invaluable resource for local schools."

The gallery intended to develop a dedicated space for a long-term but changing display of McCahon material, as it had already done with works by Colin Wheeler.

The McCahon collection also provided gallery staff with an opportunity to honour the memory of Beatrice Parsloe.

Anna Wilde, who curated the exhibition, said it demonstrated "the palpable influence and presence of the artist's older sister and the need to tell her story".

"From Alpha to Beata" will be on display in the main street level gallery until November 13, when it will be reinstated in another part of the gallery.

Many of the works were gifts to members of McCahon's family on special occasions.

The works:

Lake Waihola and Landscape (c 1931)
Dunedin Public Gardens (c 1939)
Woodhaugh Gardens (c 1938)
Vase of Flowers (1939)
Otago Harbour (undated)
Ruby Bay Mapua (1942)
Golden Bay from Takaka Hill (c 1942),
Kauri (1954)
Bush from sundeck (December 1956)
Van Gogh: Poems by John Caselberg (1957)
Waterfall (c 1964) 

- OTAGO DAILY NEWS