Artist Profile

Michael Smither

Michael Smither is acknowledged as one of nine pivotal painters who emerged in the 1960s to lead contemporary New Zealand art in new directions. Over four decades later, he stands at the crux of the contemporary movement, constantly exploring new ideas and themes closely connected with his own life.

He is best known for his hyper-realist works, whether finely painted in oil or exhibiting pure clarity in screenprints. He also is known for focusing on subject matter close to his heart: especially music, family, religion, the ocean and conservation of the world environment. A talented musician/composer, in the 1970s and 80s Smither became fascinated by the link between music and art, on the basis that “if anything looked ‘good’, it could sound ‘good’.” He completed a number of works which could actually be played as a musical score, by translating colour into sound. He identified parallels between the harmonies of colour and those of music, and formalised this into his landmark Harmonic Chart in 1982. He continues to use this as a reference. His exquisitely coloured limited edition screenprint 'After Seurat' and the related 'Musical Boats', for instance, can be played as pieces of music, with guidance from the artist, and their colours were ‘tuned’ in the creation of the artwork.

After years of dedication to his home region of Taranaki, Michael Smither now lives and paints near a more remote coast, on the Coromandel Peninsula, north of Whitianga. Smither was born in New Plymouth in October 1939. He was educated at New Plymouth schools and left school in 1958, working at the Ivon Watkins factory, a chemical factory which later became controversial and was the subject of some of his paintings. His main interests were art and underwater diving. During his father’s absence in the war years he was raised by his mother and two aunts who became Catholic nuns. He acknowledges the influence strong women have had throughout his life. He attended the Elam School of Fine Arts at Auckland University from 1959-60 but rebelled against the formal environment and left, instead teaching himself and exploring a range of subject matter. He began exhibiting in 1961, initially in New Plymouth and Auckland. In 1962 he began his first ‘rock paintings’, a series which spanned many years and explores ideas about the impact of human occupation on the coastal environment. These became iconic images associated with the artist, even though he has explored many other themes including family, religion/spirituality, clouds, and his pivotal association of colour and musical harmonies.

He won the HC Richards Memorial Prize in Australia in 1968, and in 1970 he was the Frances Hodgkins Fellow at Otago University. In 2004 Michael Smither was awarded the ONZM (Companion to the New Zealand Order of Merit) for services to art. In the mid-1960s with the birth of his children he began painting images of domestic life, including his children, his wife, and still life objects such as domestic utensils. The domestic paintings captured moments of discovery by his children, or tension between family members. As well as New Plymouth, the Otago region – his mother’s home province - provided much inspiration, expressed in simplified landforms with a human quality. With the completion of his final Taranaki paintings, he is now working on ideas more linked to his Coromandel experience, and a broader view of the landscape and the world than his past works with their intense observation of the everyday, close up.