Lot 72: William Dunning History Painting acrylic on canvas

William Dunning History Painting acrylic on canvas signed and dated 1999 580mm x 1000mm Throughout art history academic artists placed history painting at the top of the painting genre hierarchy. The hallmarks of history painting are utilized here, styled in a grand manner and depicting known persons and events. William Dunning has borrowed a painting from the past, manipulating history and a picture within a picture, creating imagined monuments. Referencing the Naivety of early New Zealand landscape artists such as Christopher Aubrey the painting alludes to issues of land claim and sovereignty. Cloaked Maori huddle to one side of the picture frame, while the stoic European stands hand in pocket, a picture of casual ownership, on the other. The inhabitants of the interior image are all European, surveying the land they have claimed and inhabited. One stands atop a tree stump, wood felled to build the masts on the ships, and the dwellings in the harbour below. William Dunning is represented by Peter McLeavey, Wellington. EF