...he’s one of the few artists New Zealand has produced who've made any sort of impact on the international art scene.

Edward (Ted) Bullmore remains one of the few New Zealand artists to have achieved meaningful recognition on the international stage.

Born in Balfour, Southland, Bullmore studied at Canterbury University College in Christchurch alongside Pat Hanly and Bill Culbert. After teaching at Tauranga Boys’ College in the late 1950s, he travelled to Florence with his wife and fellow artist Jacqueline La Roche, where he worked in the studio of Pietro Annigoni. Annigoni’s influence is evident in early works such as Yasuko (Lot 16), where a disciplined figurative approach underpins the composition.

Following six months in Italy, the Bullmores relocated to London in early 1960, remaining there until 1969. This decade proved formative. Bullmore taught at a number of art schools while developing a rigorous studio practice, exhibiting widely and attracting critical attention. By day he painted; by night he worked alongside Hanly at the Royal Court Theatre, constructing stage sets, an experience that informed his subsequent experiments with three-dimensional canvas. Using discarded theatre materials, he began incorporating wood and fibreglass into shaped supports, extending painting into object.

The early Hikarangi series drew upon the New Zealand landscape, while works produced between 1965 and 1967, grouped under the title Astro Forms, pushed further into abstraction and spatial ambiguity. Astroform No. 7 (Lot 15) stands as a compelling example of this period. A related work was acquired by Stanley Kubrick and later appeared as a set element in A Clockwork Orange (1971).

Bullmore’s standing in London grew steadily; he was elected to membership of the London Group and held a solo exhibition at Tama Galleries, presenting his shaped canvases. In 1967, he was included in the Surrealist exhibition The Enchanted Domain in Exeter, shown alongside leading international figures of the movement.

Returning to New Zealand in late 1969, Bullmore took up a teaching position at Rotorua Boys’ High School. While based in Rotorua, he continued to exhibit regularly, including with Barry Lett Galleries, and contributed works to group exhibitions such as the Christchurch Group show (1971) and the 1976 Drawing Invitational organised by the Manawatu Art Gallery. In the eight years following his return, he held twelve solo exhibitions and participated in twenty-three group shows.

Since his death in 1978, Bullmore’s significance has been increasingly recognised. He was featured in the 1982 television series Kaleidoscope, and in 1988 Rotorua Art Gallery mounted the survey exhibition Edward Bullmore: One Decade On. A major bequest by Jacqueline Bullmore in 2006, comprising 287 works, formed the basis of the 2008 exhibition Edward Bullmore: A Surrealist Odyssey, curated by Penelope Jackson, which toured nationally with an accompanying catalogue.

Bullmore’s work is held in the collections of Tauranga Art Gallery and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington.

Collection of the Artist’s Estate