DUBMASTER PhD

Moko
Painted by Charles Goldie in 1934, this portrait shows the complexity of the moko on Ngāpuhi leader Tāmati Wāka Nene. Māori called kauri gum kāpia, and used it for tattooing. They burnt the gum to get soot, which they ground into a very fine powder, and then mixed with animal fat or oil before applying it to facial cuts.


19th-century perceptions of Māori
In the early 1900s a few New Zealand scholars believed that Māori history and culture might provide the basis for a national intellectual tradition. Charles Goldie shared this view. His nostalgic images such as this 1903 oil portrait, ‘Darby and Joan’, tended to perpetuate the notion that the Māori were a sad and dying race.









‘The whitening snows of venerable elder’

Charles Goldie painted a series of portraits of elderly Māori who were supposedly contemplating not only their past, but also the life span of their race. In the late 1800s and early 1900s many Europeans considered Māori to be dying out. Portraits such as this one, painted in 1914, helped to reinforce this view.
Charles Frederick (C.F.) Goldie



Charles Frederick Goldie, 1870–1947
Charles Goldie painted many Māori portraits. His career began in earnest with an exhibition of portraits at the Auckland Society of Arts in 1900, and he soon became Auckland’s leading painter and art teacher. His Māori models usually sat for him in his Auckland studio.