Provenance:
Private Collection, Auckland
Purchased from Important, Early & Rare, International Art Centre, July 2010

Limestone Gorge, King Country is an almost identical composition to Limestone Gorge, King Country, Auckland Art Gallery Collection, illustrated p. 131 Two Hundred Years of New Zealand Painting, Gil Docking, 1971.

Docking writes: this work is a vigorous statement bearing on the area where he spent his first years in New Zealand. It summerises his search for design with big rhythms, colour orchestration and strong draughtsmanship. It was his wish to push beyond technical skill, beyond a superficial emulation of nature and towards an understanding of the inner meaning of the subject.

The term King Country dates from the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s, when colonial forces invaded the Waikato and forces of the Māori King movement withdrew south of what was called the aukati, or boundary, a line of pa alongside the Puniu River near Kihikihi. Land behind aukati remained native territory, with Europeans warned they crossed it under threat of death. The King Country is the region of the western North Island of New Zealand. It extends from Kawhia Harbour and the town of Otorohanga in the north to the upper reaches of the Whanganui River in the south, and from the Hauhungaroa and Rangitoto Ranges in the east to near the Tasman Sea in the west. It comprises hill country, large parts of which are forested.

Weeks was an influential artist, both as a painter and a teacher in the New Zealand art scene from the 1930s until the 1960s. He was born in Devonshire, England and came to New Zealand at an early age. Weeks studied at Elam School of Fine Arts from 1908 to 1911. He was an extensive traveller, spending time in England, Australia, Europe and North Africa, studying at the Edinburgh College of Arts and Andre L'Hote's Academy in Paris before returning to teach at Elam in 1929.