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Toss Woollaston - A collection of works
The RH Gallery at Woollaston, adjacent to the tasting room at the Cellar Door, hosts a programme of changing public exhibitions by national and international artists, including works by Sir Toss Woollaston, Philip's late father.
Widely regarded as a pioneer of the New Zealand modern art movement and as one of New Zealand's foremost landscape painters, Woollaston is probably best known for the large landscapes of his sixties and seventies. His paintings of the regions in which he lived - the Nelson area, the West Coast, and Taranaki - reflect not only his dedication to painting and his feeling for the landscape, but also his quest to solve the problems inherent to landscape painting, such as capturing the fleeting effects of light on colour and form. However he also completed a large number of figure drawings, nudes, and portraits and is noted for his fluid approach to the human form and his preoccupation with capturing the essence of his subject as opposed to a purely representational depiction.
With the exception of Mt Arthur in Winter, which belongs to the Woollaston Estates collection, the works are shown on behalf of the Toss Woollaston Trust and are available for sale.
Taranaki born, Toss Woollaston spent most of his adult life in the Nelson region where he first came as an eighteen-year-old apple picker. He worked at a variety of jobs (orchard worker, labourer, door-to-door salesman) to support himself and his family, drawing and painting when time permitted. When he was fifty-seven his paintings first earned him sufficient income to support him as a full time artist and his most productive years followed.
Philip Woollaston is the youngest of his four children.
For more information visit www.rh-art.co.nz or contact Gallery Director, Rebecca Hamid on 021 393 970
