The Representation of the Maori by European Artists in New Zealand, ca. 1890–1914

Abstract

Lady Mary Martin, the wife of the first chief justice of New Zealand, titled an 1884 memoir of her antipodean experiences Our Maoris. The quaint possessive might seem naïve, except that its common use by Europeans points to the proprietorial drive fundamental to the colonialist enterprise: the will to shape, control, and possess not just the land and resources of the “new” country but also the present, future, and the past of the native people. For Lady Martin this involved “raising barbarians … to the condition of Christian citizens,” claiming the Maori for civilization and progress, for “us.” For European artists this could involve the representation of Maori myth, legend, and history—representations, it will be argued, that operated as appropriations of aspects of a subordinated, indigenous culture by a dominating colonialist one. As appropriations, in terms of their production, exhibition, publication, and reception, these representations can be seen as contributing to the “takeover” of New Zealand and the establishment of a European culture and society there in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.