New York artist never far from NZ
Max Gimblett’s latest visit will see AUT award him an honorary doctorate
Acclaimed artist Max Gimblett will receive an honorary doctorate — 64 years after he graduated. Gimblett has lived in New York for more than 40 years but gets back to his “beloved” New Zealand once or twice a year.
His latest visit — the first time in 14 years that he has been accompanied by his scholar wife Dr Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett — will be more emotional than usual because Auckland University of Technology will award him an honorary doctorate on Wednesday for his outstanding and sustained contribution to the arts.
“I get very emotional when I talk about New Zealand,” says Gimblett.
“I love the nature, the ocean and memories of childhood [he grew up in Mt Eden, Grafton and Newmarket]. It’s my belief that one is strongest in one’s childhood landscape so I stand on the corner of Kitchener and Wellesley Sts and feel totally at home. Which I don’t feel in New York; I feel like an immigrant there.”
Gimblett studied at AUT in the early 1950s, when it was Seddon Memorial College, but he didn’t pursue art saying it wasn’t a career option then. Instead, he attended money, banking, and finance, a three-year twice weekly night class, and graduated in 1955 as an associate of the New Zealand Institute of Management.
He’d left school at 15 to work as a messenger boy, then salesman at Classic Manufacturing and decided, a year later, to get serious about business. After graduation, he went to London for work, married and travelled.
Influenced by the likes of Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck, Gimblett briefly considered becoming a writer but a chance meeting with a Ukrainian potter in Canada saw him take a different path. At 28, he drew, in crayon, a self-portrait and showed it to his wife who declared, “you’re a painter, Max”.
He’s been making abstract art ever since, with his work finding its way into international collections including New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the National Gallery of Australia, the Queensland Art Gallery and, in NZ, the Auckland Art Gallery, Christchurch Art Gallery and Te Papa.
“Hemingway said he learned to describe landscape by looking at Cezanne; I say I learned to paint abstract paintings by reading Hemingway,” says Gimblett who was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2015.
Now 83 and having been married for 55 years, Gimblett says the honorary doctorate from AUT is a deep honour. He already has an honorary doctorate from the University of Waikato for his philanthropy and achievements in the artistic world.
“My wife has three doctorates so it means I’m getting some mana in the family,” Gimblett says. “My view is that you can’t get enough of education.”
Exhibitions of his art are on around the country and he has spent time during this visit preparing art for his Auckland gallery, Gow Langsford, to display at Auckland Art Fair in May. Tomorrow evening, he’ll deliver a lecture, ‘Always in these Islands’, at Auckland Art Gallery and, on Saturday, March 16 at AUT, runs Sumi Ink workshops.
I stand on the corner of Kitchener and Wellesley Sts and feel totally at home. Which I don’t feel in New York. Max Gimblett