Richard Adams (born 1957) is a New Zealand jazz violinist and abstract artist.
Born in London and migrated to New Zealand, Adams was taught violin by his mother. By the time he left school at 16 he was playing in the Wellington Symphonia. He auditioned for the National Orchestra trainee section, but failed because of his poor sight-reading, having learned to play by ear. [1]
In 1989 Adams and John Quigley formed the Nairobi Trio. The trio consists of Adams (violin/vocals), Quigley (guitar/vocals), and Peter Koopman (bass/vocals). They play improvised jazz and re-worked standard jazz pieces. They are best known for their original compositions. On tour they perform as a quartet with Andrew Dixon on saxophones/flute/vocals. [2] The trio's name was chosen as a bit of a joke because none of the members came from Nairobi.
Adams received critical acclaim with the jazz group Neon Quaver. He played with his own Richard Adams Quartet and flautist Paul Horn at the Wellington International Arts Festival.
In 1977 Adams co-scripted, co-produced, and co-directed the New Zealand feature film Artman which was released at Wellington Film Festival in July 1979. In 1979 he published Translations, a book of poems and etchings. [3]
From 1982 to 1988 Adams was head scenic artist for the New Zealand Film Industry. In 1988 he co-founded Pro Art, specialising in commissioned artworks and sculptural pieces.
Adams' first studio in 1979 was the dome that was built in the garden at Rita Angus' cottage in Wellington before it became a residence for painters. Adams worked in the kitchen. When he moved to Auckland he rented the Gillies Ave studio that belonged to painter Louise Henderson. Later he worked in writer Barry Crump's former studio in Devonport.
Adams first exhibited his works in 1982 at the Molesworth Gallery in Wellington. Since then his work has been exhibited in Tokyo, Sydney, New York, London and more recently at Gallery Thirty Three in Wanaka, The Arthouse in Christchurch, and the McPherson Gallery in Auckland. [4]
In 2004 Adams was appointed Resident Artist, Chambre Avec Vue, Saignon, France.
John Stanley Body was a New Zealand composer, ethnomusicologist, photographer, teacher, and arts producer. As a composer, his work comprised concert music, music theatre, electronic music, music for film and dance, and audio-visual gallery installations. A deep and long-standing interest in the music of non-Western cultures – particularly South-East Asian – influenced much of his composing work, particularly his technique of transcribing field recordings. As an organiser of musical events and projects, Body had a significant impact on the promotion of Asian music in New Zealand, as well as the promotion of New Zealand music within the country and abroad.
Nigel Keay is a New Zealand composer. He has been a freelance musician since 1983 working as a composer, violist, and violin teacher. Nigel Keay has held the following composer residencies: Mozart Fellowship, University of Otago 1986 and 1987, Nelson School of Music 1988 and 89, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra 1995.
Michael Duncan Smither is a New Zealand painter and composer.
Richard John Frizzell is a New Zealand artist known for his pop art paintings and prints. His work often features Kiwiana iconography combined with motifs from Māori art traditions, such as the tiki and tā moko. He is based in Auckland.
Billy Apple was a New Zealand artist, whose work is associated with the London, Auckland and New York schools of pop art in the 1960s and NY's Conceptual Art movement in the 1970s. He worked alongside artists like Andy Warhol and David Hockney before opening the second of the seven New York Not-for-Profit spaces in 1969. His work is held in the permanent collections of Tate Britain, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Guggenheim Museum, Chrysler Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, National Gallery of Australia, Te Papa, Auckland Art Gallery, the Christchurch Art Gallery, the University of Auckland, and the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst in Belgium.
Humphrey John Ikin is a New Zealand furniture designer.
Maxwell Harold Gimblett, is a New Zealand and American artist. His work, a harmonious postwar synthesis of American and Japanese art, brings together abstract expressionism, modernism, spiritual abstraction, and Zen calligraphy. Gimblett’s work was included in the exhibition The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1869-1989 at the Guggenheim Museum and is represented in that museum's collection as well as thee collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, and the Auckland Art Gallery Toi O Tamaki, among others. Through out the year Gimblett leads sumi ink workshops all over the world. In 2006 he was appointed Inaugural Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Creative Arts and Industries, Auckland University. Gimblett has received honorary doctorates from Waikato University and the Auckland University of Technology and was awarded the Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM). He lives and works in New York and has returned to New Zealand over 65 times.
Nigel Gavin is a New Zealand based musician and composer, best known as a guitar player. In addition to being a highly regarded solo artist and session musician, Nigel has been a member of bands such as popular New Zealand jazz quartett The Nairobi Trio, Robert Fripp's The League of Crafty Guitarists, klezmer "Jews Brothers", and Jonathan Besser's Bravura, as well as collaborator with artists such as folk singers Luke Hurley, Wayne Gillespie and Lorina Harding, Maori soul diva Whirimako Black, multi-instrumentalist Tom Ludvigson, jazz singer Caitlin Smith and harmonica maestro Brendan Power. He has a vast musical vocabulary which ranges from acoustic blues and folk to jazz, rock, fusion, surf pop, complex ambient grooves and various world music genres, in particular klezmer. Nigel's original jazz compositions cross boundaries of genre and combine musical traditions. He has toured extensively and performed at numerous music and art festivals in New Zealand, America, Australia and Europe. An active mentor to young artists, Nigel founded and mentored the New Zealand guitar collective concept bands Gitbox and Gitbox Rebellion. As a constant innovator, he is a regular contributor to the Auckland experimental music salon Vitamin S and has given multimedia performances with photographer Ralph Talmont's photographs.
Richard Orjis is an artist based in Auckland, New Zealand.
Philip Anthony Clairmont (1949–1984) was a New Zealand painter.
František Simon Hofmann, widely known as Frank Simon Hofmann was a Czech photographer who was recognized for his art in both Europe and New Zealand.
Ivan Zagni is a New Zealand-based musician and composer who has been a member of bands such as Jody Grind, Big Sideways and Avant Garage, and has recorded albums with Aynsley Dunbar, Elton Dean, Don McGlashan and Peter Scholes.
Darryn George is a New Zealand artist of Ngāpuhi descent who is based in Christchurch.
Milan Mrkusich was a New Zealand artist and designer. He was considered a pioneer of abstract painting in New Zealand. Retrospective exhibitions of his work were organised by the Auckland Art Gallery in 1972 and 1985, and at the Gus Fisher Gallery in 2009. A substantial monograph was published by Auckland University Press in 2009.
Ian Christopher Scott was a New Zealand painter. His work was significant for pursuing an international scope and vision within a local context previously dominated by regionalist and national concerns. Over the course of his career he consistently sought to push his work towards new possibilities for painting, in the process moving between abstraction and representation, and using controversial themes and approaches, while maintaining a highly personal and recognisable style. His work spans a wide range of concerns including the New Zealand landscape, popular imagery, appropriation and art historical references. Scott's paintings are distinctive for their intensity of colour and light. His approach to painting is aligned with the modernist tradition, responding to the formal standards set by the American painters Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland and Jules Olitski.
Douglas Kerr MacDiarmid was a New Zealand expatriate painter, known for his diversity and exceptional use of colour, and involved with key movements in twentieth-century art. He lived in Paris, France, for most of his career.
Leon van den Eijkel was a Dutch-born New Zealand artist who studied at The Hague's Royal Academy of Art from 1958 to 1963, and emigrated to New Zealand in 1986. Van den Eijkel exhibited widely in Europe, the United States, and New Zealand, and is represented in many major public and private collections.
Donald Clendon Peebles was a New Zealand artist. He is regarded as a pioneer of abstract art in New Zealand, and his works are held in the collections of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, and Christchurch Art Gallery.
The Petar/James Gallery was the first New Zealand dealer gallery to focus on abstract art and the idea of Internationalism.
Ian Andrew Hunter was a Northern Irish artist, art curator and cultural advocate who worked in New Zealand and England.