Ralph Hotere (1931-2013) was one of the most prolific and versatile New Zealand artists with an active career spread over more than half a century. A rough indication of his fertile productivity is that according to the Australasian Art Sales Digest more than 2,000 works by him have been sold at auction (a number exceeded within this country only by Michael Smither). The group of works by Hotere in this auction (most from the artist's estate) offers vivid snapshots of his work from the early 1960s to the early 2000s and of the great variety of form, medium, support, subject and style he manifested across his impressive career.

A couple of undated oils on canvas, both Untitled, in all likelihood date from around 1962-63 when Hotere, already fully abstract in his manner, was living and working in Europe. The larger of the two works, consisting of pink, yellow and orange abstract shapes against a brick-red background has some similarities in colour and shapes (though not otherwise) to his first well-known series, Sangro (1962-64), named after the river in Italy where his soldier brother died in World War II. These are confident, authoritative works by a young artist still searching out his direction in art.

More than a decade later, Requiem for Tony, a watercolour pencil and ink diptych on card from 1975, shows the artist in a different phase, exploring the expressive possibilities of clusters of thin, closely stacked vertical lines in various colours, against abstract backgrounds. He used this device for numerous works in the 1970s including several major public murals, such as the Founders Theatre in Hamilton. The title references Anthony Watson, a composer and musician friend of the artist who had recently died. This exquisite work is a study for one of several larger paintings dedicated to Watson in the Requiem series. Given Watson's vocation it is tempting to see the clustered lines as having musical connotations (staves? strings?), along with the title's allusion to the Requiem mass.

A decade and a half later in 1991, Aramoana and Winter Solstice, Carey's Bay are highly characteristic works on paper in various media, including multi-coloured oil pastels, both referencing revered and often cited locations in Otago Harbour visible from Hotere's Port Chalmers studio; in both, crosses (in various configurations) are prominent, as are implicit allusions to the Catholic motif of Stations of the Cross through the number (14) of dots and crosses present. Place as the locus of spiritual meditation is central to Hotere's later practice.

Essay by - Peter Simpson