Requiem for the Crucifixion is one of a suite of three paintings completed in Auckland in the late 1970s. The other two works are in the collections of the Auckland Art Gallery and Christchurch Art Gallery. In all of these paintings the requiem, or musical drama, becomes a musical figuration where the whole canvas is filled with the crucified human form. Painted in response to the artist's research and understanding of Christianity and to the passing of beloved friends, Denys Trussell describes these works as representing : "Human contradictions, symbolised by the cross, (which) are repeated time and again over a rack of death … the wracked presences representing both a personal and a universal journey."

Text: Alan Pearson His Life and Art p.72