Don Binney

Gow Langsford Gallery is delighted to be presenting a landmark solo exhibition celebrating one of Aotearoa’s most distinctive and sought-after painters, Don Binney. Spanning five decades of his remarkable practice, the exhibition honours a career deeply rooted in New Zealand’s landscapes and the birds that soar over them.

Widely recognised as one of the leading painters of the 1960s, Binney is most well-known for his stylised depictions of native 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 (Bethell’s Beach), a place of deep personal and artistic significance for Binney.

This exhibition, which features paintings from 1962 through to 2010, offers a rare opportunity to witness the evolution of Binney’s practice. From intimate Otago scenes to commanding canvases of soaring Kawaupaku, the works highlight his enduring connection to place, scale and form. Executed in both oil and acrylic, the paintings reflect Binney’s lifelong engagement with the natural world – an engagement he once described as a “celebration” of the sky, the sea, and the land.

Binney’s work is held in all major public collections within New Zealand including Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Waikato Museum Te Whare Taonga o Waikato, and Pataka Museum of Art and Culture. Binney was awarded the OBE in 1995 and has been the subject of major exhibitions over the years, including the retrospective Binney: 40 Years On, which toured New Zealand from 2003 to 2005.