PROVENANCE Private Collection, Sydney

EXHIBITED Earth/Earth, An exhibition of Landscape Paintings by Don Binney, Michael Illingworth, Colin McCahon, Michael Smither and Toss Woollaston, Barry Lett Galleries, Auckland, 19 - 30 April 1971

Te Henga, also known as Bethells Beach, on Auckland's West Coast has been the inspiration for many of Don Binney's works. The Maori name for the area, Te Henga, is in reference to the long foredunes which run along the beach and look like the Henga or the gunwale of an upturned waka hull. This name originally applied to a wide area of the lower Waitakere River valley, but during the early 1900s the area became popular with visiting European immigrants who began to refer to the area as Bethells Beach after the Bethell Family who live there and still own much of the area.

In 1976 the New Zealand Geographic Board officially named the area Te Henga (Bethells Beach). Don Binney stated in the catalogue of his 1966 show at Barry Lett Gallery that "an artist's commitment to an area defines the idiom of the artist as it does the forms, surfaces and innate presence of land that compels his vision. These qualities, seen in the light of year to year experience produce characteristic images which gain in strength from this constant reappraisal."

In 1962, Binney began painting at Te Henga, and views of Puketotara with indigenous birds became a common motif in his artworks. In birdwatching, Binney said he discovered a passage into the landscape and the opportunity to develop a personal relationship with it.

Binney described himself as a "figurative painter concerned with the psychic metaphor of the environment." Working in oil, acrylic, charcoal, ink and carbon pencil, many of his works depict the west coast of Auckland and Northland, containing sea, sky, native birds, still life and occasionally, figures.

The following text extracted from: Earth/Earth, Barry Lett Galleries, 1971: We wanted to add our voice to the chorus of protest over the many conservation issues facing this country and late last year invited these five artists, whose territory has been the land, to contribute paintings and comments. We wanted an exhibition of landscape painting that paid homage to the land and a catalogue of comments that decried its continued destruction.