Mystery over Goldie’s Blind Woman
A private benefactor has loaned Taupō’s museum an almost priceless painting to display for the next five years – but who is the kuia pictured in Charles Frederick Goldie’s The Blind Woman of Taupō?
The painting, produced in the 1930s by the legendary artist, is now on display in the museum’s wharenui (meeting house) Te Aroha o Rongoheikume and will sit next to portraits of Ngāti Tūwharetoa chiefs Te Werahiko (Haukino) and Rutene Te Uamairangi Rahui, of pepe, painted in 1908 by notable artist and Taupō identity Thomas Ryan.
The new exhibit, called Goldie and Ryan, opened this month and museum staff are keen to find out who the woman in the painting was and are hoping locals can identify her.
Speaking at the official opening, Taupō District Council events and venues manager Steve Giles said ‘‘there aren’t too many better work days than this’’.
‘‘We have the privilege as a team to be part of the guardianship or kaitiakitanga of the treasured Goldie taonga,’’ he said.
Goldie’s work concentrated on elderly rangatira (chiefs) with moko (tattoo), preserving the socalled ‘‘noble relics of a noble race’’.
In 1901, Goldie visited Rotorua where his friend and fellow artist Thomas Ryan was operating ferry services. Ryan’s wife, Mary Wharepapa, helped Goldie with his subjects and persuaded a number of Te Arawa and Ngāti Tūwharetoa models to sit for him. However, it is not known who the woman was, or where she was from.
The existence of Ryan’s Tūwharetoa chief paintings was not known by relatives until the portraits were shown on television news show Te Karere when they were to be auctioned off at the International Art Centre in Auckland in the early 1990s.