THE ART OF PETER SIDDELL

Peter Siddell
Godwit - $75
I talked about this stunning book with Jim Mora on his Radio New Zealand programme, Afternoons, earlier today. Just a warning, the book is not published until next week so by all means put your name down for it at your favourite bookstore or library but don't expect to see it for another week.

This is a most beautiful book published to the exacting standards for which Godwit art books have become well known.

First off I must say that Peter Siddell is the contemporary New Zealand artist whom I admire above all others. This is especially because I love his exquisite art and what it says about Auckland and also because he is such a thoroughly decent man. Unassuming and modest and unaffected by the accolades bestowed upon him Sir Peter Siddell has been a painter since the 1970's.
His book serves as both a memoir and a catalogue of 150 images showing the range of his art from 1971 through to his last completed work in 2010. It also contains an essay on the artist's life and work by the renowned art historian Professor Michael Dunn.

‘We are very proud to be publishing this book,’ says Random House publishing director Nicola Legat. ‘Peter is very ill and it has been a magnificent experience and a privilege to have worked with him on the book over the past 18 months. The enthusiasm of the broader art community for the project shows the esteem in which Peter is held.’

An artist with wide popular appeal, Peter Siddell has a unique view of New Zealand. His intricately detailed paintings of Auckland urban scenes and landscapes are not quite a replication of actuality but are much loved and enduringly popular. They feature in all our national art collections and never fail to fascinate.

As Michael Dunn says, ‘He wanted his paintings to be looked at over a period of time and still be memorable, not glanced at and forgotten. This meant carefully ordering his compositions and concentrating on what was meaningful and enduring. Leaving out people and transient things allowed him to create a special kind of mood that pervades his work and lifts it out of the everyday into something different and dreamlike.’

Sir Peter Siddell has been a painter since the 1970s and is certainly one of this country’s most highly regarded living artists. Peter left school at the age of sixteen and was apprenticed for five years as an electrician. For the next ten years he worked as a tradesman and then a teacher before deciding to become a fulltime artist. (Apart from one term at night school, he is self-taught).

Since then his many major works and exhibitions have won him national affection and recognition. He was made a Knight Companion of the Order of Merit for his services to art in 2009. He lives in Auckland with his wife, the painter Sylvia Siddell.

Footnote:
I hope to interview Peter Siddell and will also be attending the book's launch next week so will write further about this gorgeous book after that.