FANTASTICA - The World of Leo Bensemann

By Peter Simpson,
Auckland University Press - $75

Fantastica is the first book to survey the life and work of Leo Bensemann (1912-1986). Accomplished in a multitude of fields - drawing, painting, print-making, music, calligraphy, typography, book design, editing, printing, publishing - Bensemann stood at the heart of New Zealand's literary and cultural life from the 1930s to the 1980s as designer and illustrator at the Caxton Press, member of The Group and friend of Charles Brasch, Rita Angus, Douglas Lilburn, Lawrence Baigent, Denis Glover and Doris Lusk.

At a time when Christchurch was the leading centre in New Zealand for literature, theatre, music and the visual arts, Bensemann, through his own activities and his personal and professional relationships, was in the thick of it. Fantastica provides new insight into that cultural scene and reveals the depth of Bensemann's work. His art and design - witty, mysterious, highly literate and allusive, fantastical in style and subject - contrasted dramatically with the prevailing fashion for realism and regional landscape, establishing Bensemann as a challenging outsider within New Zealand art. Later, from the 1960s, Bensemann took up landscape painting, producing increasingly powerful and distinctive paintings of South Island scenes, especially of the Takaka/Golden Bay area where he grew up.

A magnificent distillation of thirty years of research, (no exaggeration),  Fantastica invites us into the world of Leo Bensemann and provides a new window into the art and culture of twentieth-century New Zealand.

This striking book proved to be most fascinating and since the launch in Auckland on Tuesday evening of this week I have devoured it with relish. Of special interest to me as a former publisher was Chapter Five, The Caxton Years 1938-1978, and also Chapter Six, Book, Landfall & Ascent 1941-1978.

The author and publisher have kindly agreed to let me reproduce some of  Bensemann's art that appears in the book and these appear below.
By the way there are some 288 illustrations in the book ranging from photographs and b&w drawings to full stunning colour plates. Gorgeous stuff.

About the author.
Peter Simpson was born in Takaka in 1942 and educated at Nelson College, the University of Canterbury (MA, Hons) and the University of Toronto (PhD).
A writer, curator and editor, he is the Director of Holloway Press at the University of Auckland where formerly he was Associate Professor and Head of English.
He has written and/or edited more than a dozen books, including Ronald Hugh Morrieson (1982); Look Back Harder: Critical Writings 1935-1984 by Allan Curnow (1987); Selected Poems by Kendrick Smithyman (1989); Answering Hark: McCahon/Caselberg: Painter/Poet (2001); Colin McCahon: The Titirangi Years 1953-59 (2007); Peter Peryer, Photographer (2009); and two volumes of Bensemann's graphic work: Fantastica: Thirteen Drawings (1997) and Engravings on Wood (2004).

The Group.

This is an interesting photo from the book (page 159) taken at the last Group show on 13 November 1977.Some illustrious names among them.  Photographer unknown (courtesy of Cathy Harrington).

From left, back row: Gavin Bishop, G T Moffitt, John Coley, W A Sutton, Pat Mulcahy, Nola Barron, Leo Bensemann, Rosemary Campbell, Vivien Bishop, Toss Woollaston, Juliet Peter and John Turner.
From left, seated: Ida Lough, Philip Clairmont, Doris Lusk, Ria Bancroft and Olivia Spencer Bower.
From left, front row: Quentin MacFarlane, Jenny Hunt, Tom Field and Rosemary Johnson.

Illustrations below in descending order -

Takaka Landscape 1981
Self Portrait 1975 - used on back cover of book
Denis Glover 1937
Rita Angus 1938
Albion Wright 1947