RICHARDSON, Harry Linley;

The Artist’s Three Children

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c.1916
Oil on canvas
1300 x 1700mm

This affecting group portrait—formerly called The Morning Walk—is one of the artist’s largest paintings. It shows three of the children of Harry Linley Richardson and Constance Verrier Cooper (1879–1947). They are, left to right, Alan (1914–67), Barbara (1910–63), and Joan (1913–32). Given the apparent ages of the subjects, the piece was probably painted about 1916, when the artist was living in Te Whanganui-a-Tara and working as Head of the Art Department at Wellington Technical School.

Members of Richardson’s family, including another daughter, Cynthia (1923–33), appear in a number of seminal works, such as Bathing the Baby (c. 1913–14) and Cynthia’s Birthday (1926–27), both at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū (69/107, 69/106), and In Fancy Dress (c. 1930, also known as Party, Christmas Eve), at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (1948-0005-3). Jane Vial has noted that ‘his descendants remember the strain of his demands on the children to pose and the cost of his painting to the household purse’.

It has been commented that Richardson’s family portraits possess a certain stiffness. It might equally be observed that they convey a sense of calm, stability, and plenty. The Artist’s Three Children is remarkable for its warm, dappled sunlight, a feature that takes on additional poignancy when one considers the likely date of production, partway through the First World War.

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Inscriptions

H LINLEY RICHARDSON ·R·B·A· [l.l.]

Exhibition History

From the BNZ Art Collection, City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara, 4 December 1998 to 21 February 1999

Harry Linley Richardson, 1878–1947, Manawatū Art Gallery, Te Papaioea Palmerston North, 1986, cat. no. 14

Group show, Auckland City Art Gallery (later Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki), c. 1980

Rosco (i.e. Rosco’s Department Store), Te Papaioea Palmerston North, 1931, cat. no. 7

39th Annual Exhibition, Auckland Society of Arts, Tāmaki Makaurau, 1920, cat. no. 339

New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, Te Whanganui-a-Tara, 1918, cat. no. 133

References

Jane Vial, Harry Linley Richardson, 1878–1947: Painter, Designer, Illustrator and Teacher (Te Papaioea Palmerston North: Manawatū Art Gallery, 1986), 44.

Provenance

2022–
Fletcher Trust Collection, purchased from The Bank of New Zealand Art Collection Part II, Webb’s, Tāmaki Makaurau, 27 September 2022, lot 168

1983–2022
Bank of New Zealand Art Collection, purchased from Webb’s, 24 March 1983, lot 343

1980
Collection of J. Summerfelt, Tāmaki Makaurau (as attested by Auckland City Art Gallery exhibition label, now lost)

1968
Sold by Cordy’s, Tāmaki Makaurau, 1968

?–1968
Collection and estate of Alan Richardson, the artist’s son

?–?
Stored for ten years by Child Freighters

–1948
Collection and estate of the artist