Figure Composition

John Weeks was pivotal in the development of modernist art in Aotearoa. He worked for many years at the Elam School of Art and had a strong impact on students he taught, such as Wilfred Stanley Wallis and Louise Henderson, and worked alongside, such as Peggy Spicer and the brothers Charles Tole and John Tole.

Weeks undertook extensive training in art. He studied locally at the Elam School of Art, alongside Francis McCracken and Robert Johnson, and the Canterbury College School of Art. He also studied abroad, at the Sydney Technical College, the Royal Scottish Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Edinburgh (like McCracken, he absorbed the lessons of the Scottish Colourists), and the academy of the cubist artist André Lhôte in Paris. Peter Shand notes, ‘Of particular significance for Weeks’s later work was the attention Lhôte paid to the orchestration of colour, the subtle balancing of tonal arrangements within a composition, and the simplification and disintegration of form.’

Lhôte’s influence is particularly apparent in his nude studies or ‘figure compositions’. This painting is a fine example. A related work on paper, Four Nudes, is in the Fletcher Trust Collection, and a related painting, Group Figure Study (c. 1945), is at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū (69/675). The fact that Figure Composition is unsigned may mean that it is to be considered unfinished. It might also be a preparatory work for a painting now lost.

Many important works by Weeks were lost in 1949. On 15 January, an out-of-control party gave rise to catastrophic fire that destroyed the Elam School of Art, including Weeks’s studio on site (he also has a home studio). Over 200 important works were on site, including pieces used as teaching aides and intended for inclusion in a retrospective exhibition. In February, Weeks commented in a letter to Louise Henderson:

‘I find in making up a list of the work destroyed that there were 75 oil paintings including all my nude studies & several rhythmic compositions in colour of the Ballet and music. 43 watercolours – 40 Pastels and 25 pen and pencil drawings mostly of the Continent – Scotland – Corsica – Morocco that I can clearly remember … also much valuable equipment. Although I now realise I have lost the best part of a lifetime’s work and that it has happened rather late in life, it is no use sitting down and moaning about it which serves no useful purpose. The only sane thing to do is to try to rebuild on the ashes to attempt to achieve something that will at least equal if not surpass past efforts and to humbly accept the hand of fate.’

[1] Kyla Mackenzie, ‘Eclecticism and Continuities: A Thematic Approach to the Oeuvre of John Weeks’ (PhD thesis, University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau, 2018), 94–98.