Early Taupō artist’s legacy showcased
Thomas Ryan was a close friend of famed Charles Goldie
Taupō has been home to notable artists, international rugby players, and accomplished sailors. For a time, it was also home to one man who was all three — and more.
Thomas Ryan’s remarkable story is little-known in Taupō, the town where he lived and worked at the turn of the 20th century.
His great-granddaughter Di Michels, an artist herself, is on a mission to change that. She wants him to be remembered as an important local figure, who sailed the SS Tongariro as a passenger and mail ship, helped introduce trout to the lake, and took touring parties up Mount Ngāuruhoe.
His legacy as an artist is currently on display at Taupō Museum, with one of his oil portraits hanging alongside The Blind Woman of Taupō ,by his contemporary and close friend, Charles Goldie.
Di will give a talk at the museum later this month on the bond between her great-grandfather and Goldie, his friend and collaborator.
The museum’s display of the two paintings side-by-side pays tribute to the men’s close friendship in life.
It was Ryan who facilitated Goldie’s relationships with the Māori kaumātua and rangatira that he painted, says Di, with the help of his wife Mary, who was Ngāpuhi. Ryan also took many of the photographs that Goldie used as references.
They even collaborated on the commissioning of the frames for The Blind Woman of Taupō and several of Ryan’s paintings, made from large pieces of dark wood “to give the paintings more mana”, explains Di.
The pair’s philosophy towards art did differ, however. Goldie’s work was commercially-minded, which is reflected in the high prices that they command when resold today.
Ryan’s work, on the other hand, was driven purely by the “passion and respect that he had for the people” and places he painted, says
Di. This means that, while Di and her family grew up in homes filled with Ryan’s work — Di even uses his palette knife to this day — it is not now considered very valuable on the rare occasion that artworks come up for sale.
“I was brought up surrounded by paintbrushes,” Di laughs, and she considers it rather inevitable that both she and her mother became artists in their own rights.
Di is looking forward, she says, to sharing some of her knowledge about her great grandfather’s remarkable life at the talk.
Seeing his work hanging alongside Goldie’s has been an emotional experience for her, but she would like to see Ryan as well-regarded as his friend in today’s New Zealand.
Di Michel’s talk on Thomas Ryan and Charles Goldie’s work and relationship takes place on November 18. Visitors are welcomed from 4.30pm, with the talk beginning at 5.