A Flight Through Time: Don Binney

Gow Langsford is delighted to present a landmark solo exhibition celebrating the work of Don Binney (1940-2012), one of Aotearoa’s most distinctive painters. With a remarkable practice that spanned over five decades, this exhibition honours a career deeply rooted in the artist’s sustained engagement with our native birds and distinctive landscapes. Ranging from Otago’s rolling hills to kererū (wood pigeon) soaring over Te Henga, this is the first major exhibition of Binney’s paintings in over 20 years, highlighting his enduring connection to place, form and the unique beauty of Aotearoa.

Widely recognised as one of the leading painters of the 1960s, Binney is most well-known for his stylised depictions of birds poised against the country’s curving hills and windswept coastal landscapes. In his early works, these birds hovered in abstracted indeterminate space; over time these landscapes became more specific, with recurring appearances of the dramatic west coast beaches of Auckland – particularly Te Henga (Bethells Beach), a place of deep personal and artistic significance for Binney.

With a focus on his oil works from the 1960s and extending to one of his final paintings Huia Bay, Spurwing II which he completed in 2010, this exhibition reflects Binney’s lifelong engagement with the natural world – an engagement he once described as a “celebration” of the sky, the sea, and the land. A Flight Through Time offers a rare chance to view works held in private collections, many of which have not been publicly exhibited in a number of years.

Gow Langsford wishes to acknowledge all lenders for their generosity in making this exhibition possible.