Pacific Frigate Bird III

Don Binney’s Pacific Frigate Bird series was first exhibited at Barry Lett Galleries in 1969. Damian Skinner writes, ‘By the late 1960s, Binney is more correctly a painter of space and birds than landscapes.’[1] He goes on to cite a review of the show by Hamish Keith: ‘These recent works continue another trend in his painting—a new spatial relationship of light, horizon and organic forms. Binney has moved from the closely designed bird and landscape images of his earlier painting to an almost naturalistic treatment of space.’ That treatment would continue in works like Te Henga from Man’s Head III.

[1] Damian Skinner, Don Binney: Ngā Manu/Ngā Motu – Birds/Islands (Tāmaki Makaurau: Auckland University Press, 2003), 9.