PALMER, STANLEY (1936 -)

"Untitled (Maori Masks)" (1958)
mixed media
27.5 x 20.5cm
signed lower right
*private collection, Sydney
 
Stanley Palmer ONZM was a prominent, award-winning New Zealand Painter & Printmaker. He studied at Dunedin Technical College in the late 1950s. Although he has become well known for his prints, his formative years were spent painting. In 1969 he was awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Art Council grant and in 1970 he quit his day job as an art teacher to become a professional printmaker and painter. By the late 1970s his printmaking repertoire included woodcuts, monoprints and bamboo engravings. The scenes he portrays mainly feature New Zealand coasts with themes of colonisation, conservation, humanity and the land. Palmer has had regular and numerous one-man exhibitions at leading galleries in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. In the 2001 Queen's Birthday Honours, Palmer was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to fine art. His work is represented in the National Art Collection and also in most other important New Zealand public collections.