Colin McCahon’s Gate III has graced the walls of Victoria University of Wellington since 1972.

Thousands of students and staff have walked past it over these years and many remember their first encounter with the towering words ‘I AM’ that dominate its composition. Despite this being one of McCahon’s largest works, and one he envisaged as a cumulative statement of the themes and subjects that concerned him, it is surprising that the painting has never been included in any of McCahon’s survey exhibitions. Until 2019, the painting had only once left the campus, when in 1994 it was taken down the hill from Kelburn to an exhibition of the University’s art collection at City Gallery Wellington.

For the centenary of the artist’s birth last year, which coincided with Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi’s twentieth year as the University’s professional art gallery and guardian of its art collection, we put McCahon’s work into wider circulation. Our aim was to enable more, new and different audiences to encounter the painting in person and to ensure that the urgent message writ large on the artist’s massive canvas can be read by all who share his concerns for the shortcomings of humanity and his trust in our ability to do better.

We were excited to return the painting to one of the original 1971 Ten Big Paintings tour venues. This is the first time since then that the painting has been exhibited in the South Island Te Wai Pounamu. It is inspiring to think about this progressive moment in New Zealand’s art history when those freshly painted large-scale works were presented in the new purpose-built Canterbury Society of Arts building. We are pleased that Gate III is once more seen in the city where McCahon lived and painted at a formative phase of his career (1948–53). To deepen understanding of this mammoth work, we bring together archival material that tells its story: why and for what it was made; how it found its way to the University in Wellington; and what was going through McCahon’s mind as he painted. This has been a revelation to us, filling in gaps in our knowledge and enriching our understanding of the culture he was working in that we have inherited.

Co-curated by Christina Barton, Director

Nina Dyer, 2019 Adam Art Gallery Intern

Sophie Thorn, Curator Collections