Join us for a welcome glass of wine at 5:30
Location: Central City Library, Level 2
Join us as Peter Simpson talks about his new book, the first to survey of the life and work of Leo Bensemann (1912-1986). A magnificent distillation of thirty years of research, Fantastica invites us into the world of Leo Bensemann and provides a new window into the art and culture of twentieth-century New Zealand.
Accomplished in a multitude of fields - drawing, painting, print-making, music, calligraphy, typography, book design, editing, printing, publishing - Leo 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. His art and design - witty 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. From the 1960s Bensemann took up landscape painting, producing increasingly powerful and distinctive paintings of South Island scenes.
Peter Simpson is the Director of Holloway Press at The University of Auckland where formerly he was Associate Professor and Head of English. He has written or edited more than a dozen books, including Look Back Harder: Critical Writings 1935-1984 by Allen Curnow (AUP, 1987); Selected Poems by Kendrick Smithyman (AUP, 1989); Answering Hark: McCahon/Caselberg: Painter/Poet (2001); Colin McCahon: The Titirangi Years 1953-59 (AUP, 2007); Peter Peryer, Photographer (AUP, 2009); and two volumes of Bensemann’s graphic work: Fantastica: Thirteen Drawings (1997) and Engravings on Wood (2004).
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