The exhibition in which this painting was first shown – Small Landscapes and Waterfalls at Ikon Fine Arts in Auckland in September 1964 - was something of a breakthrough for Colin McCahon in the sense that it was the first in which he achieved commercial success. Of the 44 works in the exhibition many were small like this one and sold for the relatively low price of 11 guineas, around $500 in today’s money (larger works sold for up to 50 guineas). To the artist’s great surprise most of the paintings sold; prior to this only a handful of works, if any, would sell from each of his exhibitions, mostly to friends and fellow artists. From this point on he reached an increasingly wider audience, eventually (from 1971) enabling him to paint full-time. The waterfall image, first seen in this exhibition, became one of McCahon’s most popular and recognisable motifs. According to his own account, the waterfalls motif came both from art history and from direct observation. At Auckland City Art Gallery he had recently viewed works by Captain James Cook’s artist William Hodges of waterfalls seen in Fiordland in 1772; he also was impressed by waterfalls in oriental art, especially Japanese woodcuts by Hokusai and Hiroshige. Then, too, there were many actual waterfalls in the Waitakere Ranges, in Auckland’s back yard, which he had observed closely. In McCahon’s paintings the waterfall is usually a simple curve of white paint piercing the darkness, an image so simplified as to border on abstraction but also with symbolic implications. In this characteristic example, on a small square of hardboard, the gleaming white arc divides robustly painted areas of black and brown, the oil paint probably being mixed with sand to create a rougher texture. Though small in scale, this Waterfall punches well above its weight, so to speak, achieving an impact almost monumental. PETER SIMPSON

Colin McCahon database. record number cm000536 Small Landscapes and Waterfalls Ikon Fine Arts, 14 - 25 September 1964

Elizabeth Steiner Collection