Gottfried Lindauer

{{Infobox person

| image = Gottfried Bohumir Lindauer self portrait.jpg

| name = Gottfried Lindauer

| alt = A painting of Lindauer holding a palette and brushes in one hand, while painting onto a canvas with the other

| caption = Self portrait in 1910

| birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1839|1|5}}

| birth_place = Plzeň, Bohemia, Austrian Empire

| death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1926|6|13|1839|1|5}}

| death_place = Woodville, New Zealand

| relatives = Rebecca Petty (wife)
Victor Wilhelm Lindauer (son)

}}

Gottfried Lindauer (5 January 1839 – 13 June 1926) was a Czech and New Zealand painter. He was famous for his portraits, including many of Māori people.

Czech life and Austrian school

File:Gottfried Lindaur - Self-Portrait 1862.jpg

He was born Bohumír Lindauer in Plzeň (Pilsen), Bohemia, Austrian Empire (now part of the Czech Republic) on 5 January 1839.{{cite Australasia|Lindauer, Gottfried}} His father, Ignatz Lindauer was a gardener. His first drawing experience was plants and trees. From 1855 Lindauer studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where he took classes of Leopold Kupelwieser, Joseph von Führich and Professor Rohl. To increase his chances on the market, he decided to change his name from the Czech Bohumír to the German translation of his name, 'Gottfried'. From his studio in Plzeň he created paintings with religious themes for churches and painting frescoes in the Cathedral churches of Austria. His paintings attracted people, particularly the prominent people who were often the subjects of his paintings, including Bishop Jan Valerián Jirsík. After a sojourn in that city of eighteen months, he went to Moravia for three years.

New Zealand

File:Lindauer Woodville bust.jpg

To avoid being drafted by the Austro-Hungarian army he left for Germany in 1873. From there he sailed for New Zealand on the Reichstag in 1874, arriving in Wellington on 6 August.{{cite encyclopedia|title=Lindauer, Gottfried|first=Leonard|last=Bell|url=https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/2l12/lindauer-gottfried|encyclopedia=Dictionary of New Zealand Biography|date=1993|access-date=30 November 2018}} Many prominent Māori chiefs commissioned his work, which accurately records their facial tattoos, clothing, ornaments and weapons. A series of life-size portraits of Maori chiefs and warriors exhibited by Sir Walter Buller at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, 1886, were all by Lindauer, who had made the "Maori at home" a subject of special study. Lindauer's Maori paintings are, like many by Ellen von Meyern and Frances Hodgkins, associated with symbolist portraits of demure females with or without a child.{{cite book|first=Leonard |last=Bell|title=Colonial Constructs: European Images of the Maori, 1840–1914|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2DdeAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT367|date=1 October 2013|publisher=Auckland University Press|isbn=978-1-86940-640-0|pages=367–}} One of these, a young poi dancer without a facial tattoo, was so admired by the Prince of Wales that Buller gave it to him.{{cite web|url=https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/search#/1/collection/406702/terewai-horomona-b-1866|title=Terewai Horomona (b.1867), signed and dated 1886|website=Explore the Royal Collection Online|access-date=February 24, 2021}} His most famous works are portraits of Heeni Hirini, also known as Ana Rupene, carrying a baby on her back. Lindauer painted this image 30 times.{{cite journal|last=Hale|first=Constance|title=The Face of Aotearoa|journal=Hana Hou!|volume=21|issue=1|date=Feb–Mar 2018|page=109}}

After visiting his native land in 1886–87, he settled in Woodville, near Wellington, having shortly before married Rebecca, the daughter of Benjamin Prance Petty. They had two sons, Hector and Victor, the latter a phycologist and teacher.{{Cite journal|last=Cassie|first=Vivienne|date=August 1971|title=Contributions of Victor Lindauer (1888–1964) to New Zealand phycology|journal=Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand|volume=1|issue=2|pages=89–98|doi=10.1080/03036758.1971.10419343|issn=0303-6758|doi-access=free|bibcode=1971JRSNZ...1...89C }}{{Cite journal |last=Cooper |first=Vivienne |date=1995 |title=Victor Willhelm Lindauer (1888-1964): his life and works |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240529004547/https://www.tepapa.govt.nz/learn/research/research-publications/tuhinga-our-research-journal/tuhinga-1-1995 |journal=Tuhinga: Records of the Museum of New Zealand te Papa Tongarewa |volume=1 |pages=1–14}} Lindauer died in 1926 and is buried in the Old Gorge cemetery in Woodville.{{citation needed|date=February 2021}}

File:Gottfried Lindauer - Portrait of Terewai Horomona (b.1866).jpg|Portrait of Terewai Horomona (b.1866) without facial tattoo

File:Hinepare.jpg|Hinepare, a woman of the Ngāti Kahungunu tribe with facial tattoo

File:Paratene Te Manu, by Gottfried Lindauer.jpg|Paratene Te Manu with facial tattoo

File:Gottfried Lindauer - Ana Rupene and Child OU PTRM 1938 35 1881.jpg|Heeni Hirini
(also known as Ana Rupene) and child

His portrait paintings now fetch high prices; in 2023 a portrait of Māori chief Harawira Te Mihakai sold for $NZ 1,009,008.{{cite web|url= https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300843833/gottfried-lindauer-of-mori-chief-sells-for-more-than-1-million-at-auction |title= Gottfried- Lindauer sells for more than $1 million at auction |publisher= Stuff/Fairfax |date= 2023}}

Related information

The New Zealand sparkling wine brand is named Lindauer after the artist.
Lindauer's portrait of Paratene Te Manu is on the cover of the novel Rangatira by Paula Morris. The novel features a number of fictionalised scenes with Lindauer and Paratene, set during the painting of the portrait in 1886.
One of Lindauer's sons taught art at Woodville School in the 1920s.
His relatives were Josef Ondřej Lindauer and Josef Beran.{{cite news |title=Pilsen, New Zealand, Berlin: The Travels of Gottfried Lindauer |url=http://www.lindaueronline.co.nz/artist/pilsen-new-zealand-berlin-the-travels-of-gottfried-lindauer |publisher=Lindaueronline.co.nz}}

References

{{cite book|last=Bell|first=Leonard|title=Colonial constructs: European images of Maori 1840–1914|publisher=Auckland University Press|year=1992}}
{{cite journal|last=Blackley|first=Roger|title=The Shadow Maker: Gottfried Lindauer in Hawke's Bay|journal=Art New Zealand |volume=119|date=Winter 2006|pages=72–76, 91–92}}
{{cite journal|last=Hale|first=Constance|title=The Face of Aotearoa|journal=Hana Hou!|volume=21|issue=1|date=Feb–Mar 2018|pages=104–112}}
{{cite book|last=Mason|first=Ngahiraka|title=Gottfried Lindauer's New Zealand: The Maori portraits|publisher=Auckland University Press|year=2016}}
{{cite web|last=Stauer|first=Diana Avgusta|url=http://www.artslife.com/2015/02/04/gottfried-lindauer-the-maori-portraits-in-berlin/|title=Gottfried Lindauer: The Māori portraits in Berlin|website=Arts Life, the Cultural Revolution|date=4 February 2015}}

External links

[http://www.aucklandartgallery.com/the-collection/browse-artists/2164/gottfried-lindauer Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki: Works by Gottfried Lindauer] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120329120321/http://www.aucklandartgallery.com/the-collection/browse-artists/2164/gottfried-lindauer |date=29 March 2012 }}
[http://www.lindaueronline.co.nz/background/behind-the-brush Behind the brush: TV series celebrating Lindauer and his Maori portraits]
[http://www.lindaueronline.co.nz/visitors-book Visitors book (Maori plus English translation) for those visiting Lindauer's Maori portraits]
[http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/Person/1372 Information about Lindauer on the website of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20161006104611/http://www.nzmuseums.co.nz/esearch/all?q=gottfried+lindauer Works by Lindauer in the NZ Museums website]
[http://www.teara.govt.nz/1966/L/LindauerGottfriedOrBohumir/LindauerGottfriedOrBohumir/en Biography in 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand]
[https://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-PlaNine-t1-body-d1-d725.html Notes by Una Platts]
[http://www.lindaueronline.co.nz/ Lindauer Online website, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki]

Category:1839 births

Category:1926 deaths

Category:19th-century New Zealand painters

Category:19th-century New Zealand male artists

Category:20th-century New Zealand painters

Category:20th-century New Zealand male artists

Category:Artists from Plzeň

Category:Emigrants from Austria-Hungary

Category:Immigrants to New Zealand

Category:19th-century Czech painters

Category:20th-century Czech painters

Category:Czech male painters