PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Auckland since 1980

As a boy, Don Binney looked forward to hearing the shining cuckoo, or pipiwharauroa. He heard it for the first time in Kohimarama, its song heralding the beginning of spring. As the Maori proverb says, ka tangi te wharauroa, ko nga karere a Mahuru - if the shining cuckoo cries, it is the messenger of spring. Binney reportedly never lost touch with the joy of this bird's song. Spring represents hope; newness in life and nature. This feeling is perfectly aligned to the glorious, soaring beauty of the shining cuckoo in the foreground of this painting.

Pipiwharauroa over Te Henga represents the pinnacle of Binney's contribution to New Zealand art. Produced during his most technically successful period, it is one of the most important of his oeuvre. The combination of its superb quality, large scale, and pristine condition make it the most significant Binney to have ever been presented to auction.

Te Henga/Bethell's Beach was one of Binney's favourite spots, and features in many of his works. It is named after the henga, or upturned form of the waka, which resembles the contours of the coast when looking from sea. In this painting, the land has been sharply detailed to convey the light and impression of each topographical contour.

The size of the work reflects Binney's confidence in his own technique. Here, the slight technical aberrations that were present in the less certain, experimental forms of some of his 1960s bird paintings (more often than not, imperfections resulting from problematic paint application) are long gone. By 1974, he had firmly resolved them, and had also been painting Te Henga for over twelve years.

Pipiwharauroa over Te Henga greatest technical triumphs is its textural contrast. Binney's application of a smooth, matte-like finish to portray the bluish grey expanses of sea and sky are flat and serene, mirror-like in appearance. They cast the glossy impasto of the pipiwharauroa, and the green of the hills into sharp relief. This contrast is sublime, so that the painting appears not uniformly polished, but inimitably finessed.

Don Binney is New Zealand's unsurpassed artistornithologist. Over the course of his career he painted birds, works conveying strong messages of conservation and environmentalism. He also completed a number of other works featuring the pipiwharauroa in particular - depicting it mating, in "madness", in advent, in late summer, and with kereru. According to Maori mythology, it was this bird's migratory flight which inspired the journey of Maori to New Zealand.

Although the pipiwharauroa is a harbinger of spring and this symbolism is apt, this work does not need to be interpreted in a seasonally specific way - in the foreground, vividly detailed and blooming red, there is a pohutukawa tree. With the presence of New Zealand's Christmas tree, this painting becomes more than a spring birdsong of hope and joy; it is a national anthem.