Douglas Kerr MacDiarmid New Zealand, 1922-2020
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About Douglas Kerr MacDiarmid
Douglas Kerr MacDiarmid was born in Taihape, New Zealand in 1922, and after schooling, graduated from Canterbury College, Christchurch with an arts degree. In 1946, MacDiarmid left New Zealand to "devour the world", paying serious attention to master artists whose work he admired. He returned in 1949-50, before settling permanently in France to dedicate his life to paint, but returned to New Zealand regularly. Between 1949 and 2018, there were 41 solo exhibitions in New Zealand alone. In 1990, he was brought back to New Zealand as an official guest and a solo exhibiting artist for the nation’s Sesquicentennial celebrations at Wellington. He was declared a ‘New Zealand Living Cultural Treasure’ on that visit, and his portrait was one of the first five painted for the fledgling New Zealand Portrait Gallery. He painted every day in his Montmartre, Paris studio and exhibited regularly well into his nineties. At the time of his death, aged almost 98, he was recognised by art historians as New Zealand’s longest-lived and longest-working painter. His paintings are owned by French and New Zealand governments, the City of Paris, 20 New Zealand public art galleries, and are found in private collections across the world.
The total number of works by Douglas MacDiarmid offered for sale by auction since 1988 is 321, of which 251 (78%) were sold. The highest price recorded for the artist is $25,629 for Children in Room at Night sold by Art+Object in September 2016. This year 16 works have been offered for sale. Works by Douglas MacDiarmid are held by the Christchurch Art Gallery, Suter Art Gallery and Auckland Art Gallery.
Douglas Kerr MacDiarmid is listed in the following standard biographical references:
- McGahey, Kate. The Concise Dictionary of New Zealand Artists Painters Printmakers Sculptors, Gilt Edge Publishing, Wellington, New Zealand, 2000. Page 156
- The Find New Zealand Artists web site: a database of artist names that directs researchers to the rich resources found in New Zealand's libraries, art society exhibition histories and published sources.
The Australian Art Sales Digest is a database of over 610,000 works by more than 12,000 artists who are listed as having either lived or worked in Australia or New Zealand, and an additional 36,000 foreign and other artists, offered for sale by auction in Australia and New Zealand from the early 1970s to the present day.
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