Tom Graham, 89, is having his first art exhibition after taking up painting 15 years ago. Photo / Erin Smith
Inside his home along a side street in Gonville, a Whanganui man has been building a collection over the past 15 years - unknown to most of the world until recently.
Now, at 89 years old, Tom Graham will have his first art exhibition.
Graham, originally from Galashiels, Selkirkshire, Scotland, has lived with his wife, Margaret Graham, for the past 60-odd years in the same Gonville home.
After Margaret died last year, he contacted a second-hand dealer, Andrew Gannon, to see if he would be interested in her Crown Lynn porcelain collection.
As Graham and Gannon wandered around his home looking at pieces, Gannon noticed something: heaps of paintings, all by one artist, displayed around the home and stashed away in a small, self-built studio in the back garden.
“He says, ‘Good grief, where did all this come from?’” Graham said.
“And of course, I says, I painted them.”
Since he began 15 years ago, Graham has painted 87 paintings.
“I don’t class myself as an artist,” he said.
Trained as a carpenter and having worked in trades his whole life, he thought of himself as a painter more than a creative.
“[I] just fell into it.”
Unbeknown to Graham, Gannon contacted gallery director Paul Rayner, of Whanganui’s Rayner Brothers Gallery, about the paintings.
“He rang up and he says, ‘Can Paul and I come and have a look at your paintings again?’ I said, yeah, of course you can. I don’t care,” Graham said.
“That’s how it started.”
Rayner was struck by Graham’s paintings and offered to put them in his gallery.
“Tom has a style that hasn’t been influenced by any particular art movement, which is rare,” Rayner said.
“He seems to construct his works rather like a builder, which probably comes from the fact that he was a carpenter by trade.”
Rayner selected a handful of Graham’s paintings and, within a few months, had them ready for viewing.
His exhibition, The Paintings of Tom Graham, is on display at Rayner Brothers Gallery at 45 Taupō Quay until October 25.
The gallery has already sold four paintings - three on opening night and a fifth currently in talks.
Graham attended the opening night for about half an hour.
“Not really my scene,” he said.
Back in his home, the walls are laden with photos of his family, interspersed among his paintings of Scottish landscapes, places in New Zealand, his former army regiment crest and other subjects that took his fancy over the years.
The Grahams moved to New Zealand in 1963 in search of better employment opportunities after a particularly harsh winter in Scotland in 1962 led to mass layoffs of trade workers.
“We all got put off three times in one week,” he said.
“So I said to Margaret, there must be somewhere better than this.”
After considering Australia and New Zealand, they decided to settle in Wellington. They lived there briefly before moving to Gonville where they began a family and had three sons.
He worked as a carpenter at Dixon Construction and then at the Ministry of Works for several decades.
In his free time, Graham played semi-professional football. He began in Scotland playing for Gala Fairydean Rovers Football Club, then for Vale of Leven Football Club.
He continued in New Zealand and said he was the only player from Whanganui in a Central Districts team.
When he and his wife retired, their sons gifted Margaret paintbrushes and a canvas to try as a new pastime. She gave painting a go but without much success, attempting to paint a Christmas scene of a robin on top of a snowy post.
Graham offered to lend a hand.
“I said to her, can I put my pennyworth in and see if I can tickle that up a bit better than what it is,” he said.
“She says, yeah, do what you like with it. She says, look at the state of it.”
After a few tweaks, they agreed it was much improved.
His wife encouraged him to continue painting.
Over the next 15 years, Graham added to the collection in his small studio, painting while his wife read nearby.
He began painting his two army regiments - the King’s Own Scottish Borderers and Airborne.
He then moved on to landscapes, painting places from photo books of the Scottish countryside, places from his and his wife’s past, and her hometown of North Berwick, Scotland.
He keeps many of the personal connection landscapes on the walls of his home.
He continues to paint despite his eyesight fading over the years.
“I might not be here tomorrow,” he said.
He does not know exactly what will happen to his almost 90 paintings.
“I’d rather they go to a charity rather than go into a bin.”
His studio is covered with photos from his football and army days, jerseys and Scottish memorabilia.
He has painted his home, which he built most of himself, three times.
His most recent painting is a safari scene with animals surrounding a watering hole.
“I’ve only done it for a bit of fun.”