Colin McCahon's House Parehuia

**McCahon House Museum
**By James Littlewood

McCahon House has many stories to tell. It tells us about the development of one of New Zealand’s most revered artists. It tells us about his life and work. It also tells us about his family’s life, about the artistic community of west Auckland, and about the housing of a great many other New Zealanders in the 1950s.

After searching the inner suburbs for an affordable roof over the heads of his family, McCahon, a newly appointed curator at the Auckland Art Gallery, soon discovered French Bay in Titirangi, on the edge of the Manukau. He wrote to his friend Ron O’Reilly:

… am the proud possessor of a house at Titirangi … a patch of native bush and about 20-odd kauri trees & a sunporch & sundeck looking right into the tops of a nikau palm grove. A lovely little beach about 200 yards away & shops & so on about 10 minutes up the hill … We have nothing left to buy even a table let alone such luxury items as chairs. Not that that matters ...

Even today, Titirangi has a distinct out-of-town flavour. In 1953 there was no motorway, and the McCahons owned no car. He commuted by bus to the city, and this daily traverse of the Auckland suburbs directly inspired the paintings “Towards Auckland”, and gave him time to reflect on much else. But at over an hour in each direction, it was not easy living.

The isolation was probably harder still for his wife, Anne. Sadly, her painting career was paused and never resumed professionally, although some of her work survives in regional and national collections, as well as in the School Journal, for which she was one of a number of illustrators.

Visitors to the house are often surprised by the living conditions, which were rough by today’s standards. There’s a distinct shortage of space which is only fractionally compensated by the addition of outdoor bedrooms. However, it’s important to remember that sleeping outdoors was not so unusual in the 1950s.

McCahon was struck by the lush native forest surrounding the house, and this had an immediate effect on his painting. Compared to the vast, sweeping landscapes of the South Island, at Titirangi his landscapes look upwards not at distant mountains, but at trees, towering high and at close quarters, overwhelming the viewer.

The same forest — indeed, many of the exact same trees — which inspired McCahon is now threatened by kauri dieback. McCahon House Museum takes an active role in minimising the impact of this bio-threat and in educating people about the human vectors of its transmission.

During the seven years he spent at French Bay, McCahon’s painting flourished. He produced at least 80 large paintings, and many more smaller ones and drawings. His work over these years contained nearly all of the major themes that would come to characterise his paintings in later years: new ways of treating landscape, cubism, biblical references, text and numbers all play significant roles in these works.

In addition to his painting career, his curatorial work and his teaching, McCahon worked hard on improving the house, and most of his additions and improvements have been either retained or reinstated. There are ingenious articulated doorways, designed to optimise privacy in the limited spaces; a space under the shed which he converted into a bedroom; various walls which he moved around and reconfigured; and murals which he painted which are now housed in museums are recreated in a more durable form.

In 1999 the house was purchased by the local council, restored as closely as possible into its known condition in 1959 (the year the McCahons left for central Auckland) and opened as a museum. Immediately adjacent to it is an artist’s residence, administered by the McCahon House Trust.

Driving from the city to Piha, it’s easy to drive through Titirangi, and to take a short detour down to 67 Otitori Bay Rd in French Bay. The house is a kind of crucible of artistic, social and natural histories, where many of Auckland’s defining themes are played out within a few square metres.

The McCahon House may be the only single-artist house museum in the country, it’s more than worth-a-look: a trip here well and truly completes any visit to Auckland.
(And if there are any other single-artist house museums out there, get in touch: the team here at NZ Places would love to know)

McCahon House Museum at 67 Otitori Bay Rd is open to the public Wed - Sun, 1 pm - 4 pm.


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