NEW RANGE OF NZ POST STAMPS: Michel Tuffery’s Artistic Journey of Discovery.
Artist Michel Tuffery’s series of paintings that focus on Tupaia, the arioi and star navigator who accompanied British explorer James Cook from Tahiti to New Zealand, have been reproduced in a range of NZ Post stamps called Michel Tuffery’s Artistic Journey of Discovery.
Born in Ra‘iatea, Tupaia’s home island and
the second largest of the Society Islands, after Tahiti, Tuffery recently visited Uawa-Tolaga Bay with filmmaker Lala Rolls, director of the documentary Tupaia’s Endeavour, for a screening of a feature length version of the film. Tupaia has been largely overlooked by European history but played a significant role as translator and mediator between Cook and Maori.
On joining Cook’s expedition on the Endeavour from Tahiti to New Zealand, Tupaia urged Cook to sail west to catch favourable currents to these shores. Although a NZ Post outline says Tupaia “guided Lieutenant James Cook and the Endeavour from Tahiti to Aotearoa in 1769” the Ra‘iatean in fact suffered badly, as did many of the crew, when Cook chose to follow Abel Tasman’s charts through rough seas to New Zealand.
One of two $1.30 stamps features Tuffery’s painting, Kotuku the messenger at Uawa (or A messenger from Ra‘iatea). The kotuku is a white heron. Tuffery finished this work late one morning “while talking with Kotuku”, he says on his Facebook page.
“The detail is of a Pacific Reef Heron (it is actually of a white-faced heron; the reef heron is uniformly dark) which landed while I was drawing at the Taputapuaaea marae several years back. I have come across herons before with some of my illustrations so it was a magic moment bringing it back to Uawa as a connector with the rock drawings at Tupaia’s Cave.
