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Moonrise at Shearer’s Quarters
Measures 72 x 53cm.
Proofed and hand-signed in pencil by Grahame, printed on premium heavy 250gsm satin artboard and offset printed for high colour accuracy.
‘Moonrise at Shearer’s Quarters’. Oil on Linen. 840 x 1215mm. 2014. Private Collection. “Used only once each year for the shearing gang, and home to a vast coal range (no power there). The setting sun behind me reflects on the window panes as the Hawkduns are slowly swallowed by shadow.” GCS
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July on the Maniototo
From the ‘Classic Series’. Measures 66 x 46cm.
Proofed and hand-signed in pencil by Grahame, printed on premium heavy 250gsm satin artboard and offset printed for high colour accuracy.
‘July on the Maniototo’. Egg Tempera. 585 x 750mm. 1975. Private Collection. “In the initial drawings, the railway goods shed was sheltering a wagon covered in an orange tarpaulin, and I painted it that way; but after some unsettled weeks wondering why it didn’t seem to work, I took it out. Instantly the feel changed from one of ‘shelter from the storm’ to a far more bleak and lonely notion, and much the better for it. A perfect example of trusting painterly instinct over truth and reality. My paintings are so often exercises in dishonesty.” GCS
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Crossroads
Measures 89 x 60cm.
Proofed and hand-signed in pencil by Grahame, printed on premium heavy 250gsm satin artboard and offset printed for high colour accuracy.
‘Crossroads’. Oil on Linen. 760 x 1220mm. 2020. Private Collection. “Out on Barney’s Lane West, on the Maniototo, with a few of my usual rearrangements and omissions, trying to get to the heart of it. The painting has demands all its own, so removed from the truth.” GCS
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Last Man Standing
Measures 89 x 61cm.
Proofed and hand-signed in pencil by Grahame, printed on premium heavy 250gsm satin artboard and offset printed for high colour accuracy.
‘Last Man Standing’. Oil on Linen. 760 x 1220mm. 2019. Private Collection. “So often my decision to use something in a painting rings a death knell. In this case the tree, on a plateau between Becks and Lauder, was felled by the farmer soon after I drew it.” GCS
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Night House II
Measures 82 x 61cm.
Proofed and hand-signed in pencil by Grahame, printed on premium heavy 250gsm satin artboard and offfset printed for high colour accuracy.
‘Night House II’. Oil on Linen. 760 x 1215 mm. 1995. Private Collection. ‘Night House II’ depicts a lonely weatherboard house lit by a single external light, with the last room in the house, marking the end of a long day.
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Silent Spring, Falls Dam
Measures 82 x 61cm.
Proofed and hand-signed in pencil by Grahame, printed on premium heavy 250gsm satin artboard and offfset printed for high colour accuracy.
‘Silent Spring, Falls Dam’. Oil on Linen. 710 x 1010 mm. 2019. Private Collection, Asia. “Falls Dam village is a collection of fishermen’s squatter huts at the foot of the Hawkdun Range. No electricity, no water supply – its simple, primitive living. The dam was a 1930’s make-work irrigation scheme project to keep Depression-era men employed”. GCS
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Auripo Road
From the ‘Classic Series’. Measures 72 x 45cm.
Proofed and hand-signed in pencil by Grahame, printed on premium heavy 250gsm satin artboard and offfset printed for high colour accuracy.
‘Auripo Road’. Egg Tempera. 420 x 748mm. 1979. Private Collection. “This painting came about as a direct result of my car breaking down and me finding myself alone at the roadside, waiting for a passing vehicle to give me a hand. Nearby was a gravel intersection with an assembly of rural mail boxes for the properties down Auripo Road; each with its own private story and character, all hoping – as I was – for some life and relief from the silence and the boredom. As I waited I began to realise there was a subject for me.” GCS
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Rozzie at Pisa
From the ‘Classic Series’. Measures 60.5 x 61cm.
Proofed and hand-signed in pencil by Grahame, printed on premium heavy 250gsm satin artboard and offfset printed for high colour accuracy.
‘Rozzie at Pisa’. Egg Tempera. 610 x 610mm. 1978. National Collection, Te Papa Tongarewa. Painted in 1978 when living in a cottage on Mount Pisa Station, this portrait of Grahame’s then wife, Ros, shows her standing at the kitchen door of the cottage, lost in her own thoughts. When the NZ Listener conducted a reader’s survey to find NZ’s most popular painting, this portrait was headed only by Rita Angus’s ‘Cass’.