Auckland Harbour, Ships Off North Head

Alfred Walsh was born in Victoria, Australia, in 1859 to Irish parents. The family moved to Aotearoa in 1864, settling in Ōtepoti, where Walsh received artistic training. In 1887, he relocated to Ōtautahi. He became a working member of the Canterbury Society of Arts and taught for many years at the Canterbury School of Art. He formed connections with other leading artists of the day, including William Menzies Gibb, Raymond McIntyre, and Sydney Lough Thompson, who later spoke of Walsh as one ‘whose work I always admired and whom I believed to be a genius’.[1]

Walsh moved to Tāmaki Makaurau in 1911. Neil Roberts has observed, ‘He was particularly attracted to Auckland Harbour with its bays and foreshore, especially on calm, clear mornings and he went out painting whenever he could.’[1] This painting was likely made quite rapidly on the spot, rather than in a studio.

[1] Neil Roberts, Alfred Wilson Walsh (Ōtautahi: Robert McDougall Art Gallery, 2000), 18.

[2] Ibid.