Renowned Māori portrait to return from UK after decades

By Maia Ingoe of RNZ

A Māori portrait by renowned Kiwi artist Vera Cummings is set to return to New Zealand after at least six decades out of the country.

The portrait was recently sold in the UK for £1800 ($3790) to an online bidder from New Zealand by Richard Winterton Auctioneers.

It depicts a Māori man with a tā moko wearing a pounamu hei-tiki pendant.

Cataloguer and auctioneer David Fergus said the previous owners of the painting were not aware of its importance and did not know how it had travelled to the United Kingdom.

“I think the person that had originally owned it had passed away, and when they were clearing the house, they found the painting in a drawer. They’d never seen it before.”

He himself was not aware of its value at first glance.

“It needs a good clean and there’s a little bit of damage, and I wasn’t expecting any high hopes for it. And then when I started researching through the art auction databases, I was stunned to find that she’s highly regarded, and it’s actually worth some money. It was a nice surprise.”

The winning bidder beat competition from Australia and Fergus said it was fitting that the portrait was going back to New Zealand.

“I don’t know who has bought it but I like to think that it will get shown to a wider audience once it does get back, because it deserves to be seen.”

Cummings was known for her portraits of Māori. She was a pupil of Charles F Goldie.

Fergus estimated the work was painted in the 1930s or 1940s, when Māori portraiture was not thought of as valuable.

The portrait of a Māori man with a tā moko wearing a pounamu hei-tiki pendant was believed to have been painted in the 1930s or 1940s. Photo / Richard Winterton Auctioneers Ltd

“It was painted at a time when New Zealand indigenous people were not thought of as being highly regarded at all. Most people thought they weren’t worthy - ‘why would you want to paint somebody like that, why aren’t you painting the mayor?’

“So there’s not many early portraits of indigenous Māori people.”

Cummings sold her portraits as souvenirs as they were not high value.

“There’s probably a few tucked away waiting to be discovered - but she wasn’t a prolific artist,” Fergus said.

Cummings was born in Thames in 1891. At the age of 11, she was one of the youngest students to receive a scholarship to attend Elam School of Fine Arts where she studied under CF Goldie, the renowned portrait artist.

After graduation, she continued to paint alongside Goldie and frequently depicted the same people, often elderly Māori from a hostel near the Auckland suburb of Parnell.

She died in Auckland in 1949, aged 58.

Her work Portrait of a Māori Woman is part of the collection of the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki.