A life in paint for artist's Central Hawke's Bay exhibition

Richard Moorhead with a self-portrait he painted when he was 19.

The latest exhibition at Central Hawke's Bay Museum is a visual tour of artist Richard Moorhead's life in paint ... from his first paintings as a child in Tikokino to some of his latest works.

Moorhead, who turns 80 in July, grew up in Tikokino. He was severely asthmatic as a child and missed a lot of school, bedridden.

"To stop me asking 'what can I do?' my mother threw paper, pencils and paints at me," Moorhead says.

He copied pictures and one of those first paintings, a copy of Constable's Flatford Mill that he did as a 10-year-old, is in the exhibition, as is a self-portrait he painted at 19, when he was first made an Artist Member of the Hawke's Bay Art Gallery and Museum. He has a painting in the permanent collection there.

Moorhead was also chairman of Otane Arts and Crafts, current chairman of the Keirunga Artists Committee, a founding member of the Norsewear Art Award Trust and part of the Community Arts and the Regional Arts Council, as a Government appointee. He has also been a member of the Wellington Watercolour Society and is a member of Watercolour New Zealand.

Guests take in the artworks at the opening of Richard Moorhead's current exhibition at the Central Hawke's Bay Museum.

He claims impatience as the reason he works largely in watercolour.

"I paint very quickly and have trouble waiting for the layers of oils to dry."

He also paints largely "en plein air" - outside with his subject in front of him.

This exhibition has scenes from New Zealand as well as from international trips, with many of the paintings on loan from their owners.

Three paintings are on sale, with proceeds to go to the Hawke's Bay Rescue Helicopter Trust.

Moorhead has planned this exhibition since he helped hang some artworks in the museum's gallery two years ago.

"I was so taken with the space I booked in immediately," he says.

The Richard Moorhead Art Exhibition is on show at the CHB Museum, High St, Waipawa, for two months.