PROVENANCE Private Collection, Auckland

Moffitt's brother-in-law, Ian Hamilton, was a dentist living in Paroa on the West Coast at the time the Stan Graham Series was in the news elsewhere: You could say that they [the paintings] were pretty well ignored on the Coast and nobody discussed it. ... No publicity given to [it] ... I think they saw it as digging around in Coast stuff that should be left at home. In a February 1988 edition of The New Zealand Listener Pam Walker provided a dramatic review of the Stan Graham Series. Illustrated with a reproduction of Graham Fleeing into the Night Wounded it stated: This narrative ... [has been] carried out in restrained, symbolic colour which blunted its violence and set a matter-of-fact distance between protagonist and spectator. ... McCahon's influence, and Frizzell's and Nigel Brown's kinship, were evident in the boldly simplified forms and in the unity linking people and landscape, as blockily uncouth figures confronted each other in static poses of stylised realism.

In the 1988 Winter edition of Art New Zealand Penny Orme wrote an article on Trevor Moffitt. While illustrated with images from the latest Stan Graham Series she also referenced Mackenzie, My Father's Life, and Artist as a Solo Father to highlight that, 'In depicting the courses of these lives, Moffitt manifests his concern for the human condition'.

Pat Condon and his wife Marilyn had been long-term collectors of paintings prior to them opening the Canterbury Gallery in Papanui Road, Christchurch. In August 1988 when the Gallery opened in the old 1883 Eyre Cottage, there were four Stan Graham Series exhibited. This was the beginning of Moffitts association with the Gallery that would last for a number of years.

During the period of Stan Graham Leo Bensemann died in 1986. Leo was a very good friend of Moffs, a kind of mentor to him, and probably seen by Trevor as a kindred spirit who lived life to the full, slightly outside the 'establishment', with them both paying for their indulgence by not receiving their full recognition as artists. Bensemann was seriously ill for quite sometime before his death, and some time around 1976 Moffitt recorded over two hours of interviews with him. Also at this time, Trevor was involved in helping a young student battle bureaucracy.

Reproduced with permission from Chris Ronayne, author of Trevor Moffitt A Biography, David Ling Publishing Limited, 2006