Worth his weight in Goldie
Shortly after Christmas, yet another Goldie painting was stolen. What makes the New Zealand artist, who did his best work more than 100 years ago, so attractive to thieves? Ellen O’Dwyer reports.
In the sleepy days after Christmas, burglars broke into an unassuming Hamilton home and walked off with a rare cultural artefact.
They pilfered an antique clock, cutlery set and artworks, but it’s not yet clear whether the thieves knew they had their hands on a painting by one of New Zealand’s most renowned artists.
Charles Frederick Goldie’s
Sleep ’Tis a Gentle Thing,
depicting Nga¯ ti Maru and Nga¯ ti Pa¯ oa chief Hori Pokai, was stolen between December 27 and January 3, 2021.
Last week, three men were arrested and jointly charged with burglary in Hamilton. Police searched an address and found other stolen goods. But not the Goldie. The 1930s painting, potentially worth about $500,000, could have been sequestered to the dark recesses of an unknown safe house, rolled up and stuffed under a bed, or is lying at the bottom of the Waikato River.
The theft has drawn public intrigue and condemnation from the art world.
Experts say a piece of New Zealand heritage could be lost forever.
But the Goldie disappearance joins a string of recent art theft.
In November, thieves seized a 146-year-old Gottfried Lindauer painting, The Crown of Thorns, from a church in Upper Moutere, near Nelson.
Two days later a mysterious man appeared at the church grounds, returning a car-bootful of candle-holders, crosses and communion plates, and the Lindauer.
And in late December Waihı¯ police recovered a haul of more than 30 stolen paintings and prints at a Coromandel house. A police spokesperson told
Stuff they were not aware of any recent ‘‘significant increase’’ in art theft across the country.
Art crime expert Penelope Jackson says there’s a long history of the problem in New Zealand.
‘‘Wherever there’s art, there’s art crime,’’ the author of Art Thieves, Fakers and Fraudsters:
A New Zealand Story says. ‘‘Why is it poor old Goldie, that’s the big question, isn’t it?’’
Jackson lists off multiple Goldie thefts in the past 40 years, twice from galleries in the 1970s and 80s and once from the University of Auckland Library in 2007. All works were returned after the thefts.
But in 2008, a Mosgiel couple had their Goldie stolen from their spare bedroom after an open home viewing.
‘‘[The painting] had been in the family for decades, no-one had ever photographed it, front or back. They couldn’t get the image out there.’’
Days later, a book about New Zealand Art was found at the Dunedin Public Library with pages explaining the significance of Goldie torn out.
Gottfried Lindauer works are popular victims too. In 2017, his paintings Chieftainess Ngatai-Raure and Chief
Ngatai-Raure, were taken in a fast smash and grab from the International Art Centre in Parnell, Auckland.
‘‘Thieves smashed the window, there was glass involved, and there was speed, there were vehicles, we know all of that from CCTV,’’ Jackson says.
Six months later, images of the artwork appeared on the dark web, claiming to offer the work for sale anywhere in the world for $1 million. Police said the listing was a scam, and it quickly disappeared.
To date, the works haven’t been recovered.
Jackson thinks Goldie and Lindauer works get stolen because ‘‘they are to New Zealand like Rembrandt is to Western Europe’’.
‘‘Goldie died in 1947 so the supply has really dried up big time. So what do you do? You either steal or forge, and stealing is probably the easier option.’’
Goldie and Lindauer: divisive ‘taonga’
Alexander Turnbull Library curator Dr Oliver Stead says Goldie and Lindauer are both artists who have dropped in and out of fashion, then experienced a resurgence.
Working in the late 19th century and early 20th century (Lindauer was older), both artists specialised in portraiture of important Ma¯ ori. Both had impressive technical training overseas.
As early as 1996, art scholar Roger Blackley suggested Goldie’s popularity as an artist was linked to thefts.
‘‘His popular fame is based largely on a spiral of recordshattering prices together with thefts, vandalisms and forgeries,’’ Blackley wrote in The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography.
Notorious forger Karl Sim prolifically copied Goldie’s work, changing his own name to Carl Feodor Goldie to legally sign his paintings C. F. Goldie.
Stead says Goldie’s work can be divisive – it can be seen as portraying Ma¯ ori in a sentimental way, the subjects are often old, their eyes downcast or sleeping, and he
gave them titles like A Noble Relic of a Noble Race.
On the other hand, a lot of the descendants of his subjects hold his work in high esteem.
‘‘In contrast Lindauer was very often commissioned by Ma¯ ori to paint for them . . . he was actually making portraits that had a function as portraits, exhibited proudly by Ma¯ ori in their own houses.’’
Both artists are renowned because they offer a window into New Zealand’s past, into Ma¯ oriPa¯ keha¯ relationships during the late 19th and early 20th century.
‘‘The best works come up beautifully when restored, and they are a taonga for the record of tu¯ puna they provide.’’
The drive to steal ar
Greed, desire, power, political protest, desperation: all can motivate someone to steal art.
Jackson says: ‘‘Greed is ‘We