Bill Reed's Quiet Regionalism - I was performing in Invercargill when I first came across the paintings of Bill Reed. He was teaching at the art school there and a mutual friend suggested I look at some of the work, "Bill could do with the money"... which I understood from trying to make a living in music. Things weren't going too badly for me, so I ended up buying a few paintings. That's over 30 years ago. The 80s. Later I sold one to the McDougall Art Gallery and following Christchurch earthquake of 2011, when I went to live in Thailand for a few years. Bill Reed's paintings have hung on my various walls or at friends places ever since.

I have always loved Boats in a Harbour. It is a jewel of a painting, full of light and gaiety. It embodies both regionalism and modernism in much the same way that Rita Angus' work does. Not surprisingly Reed, Russell Clark, Bill Sutton and Rita Angus would often go on plein air painting trips together. Reed was best man at Russell Clark's wedding. This painting is most likely near Moeraki, Otago. From 1942-45 Bill Reed was in the Field Ambulance Corp stationed in the Pacific Zone. I have a couple of paintings that come from that time - one work is of two island men on a beach sawing a big log; and a portrait of a women wearing a brightly coloured headscarf. There is another little painting, the size of a cigar box lid, of an old woman collecting faggots for a fire. They all display deft, painterly brushwork and a sensitive highly developed colour palette.

Reed never enjoyed the attention that Rita Angus got. In the mad rush of internationalism that has overtaken the New Zealand Art market in recent times, quiet, modest regionalist artworks are too easily overlooked. But his best work is up there with the best of it. A work by Rita Angus, of similar calibre and size, recently sold for over $100,000.

MALCOLM MCNEIL

WORKS FROM THE MALCOLM MCNEILL COLLECTION LOTS 8 - 14

Malcolm Ivan McNeill (b.1945) is a Christchurch based jazz singer. In the early 1970s he lived and worked in England. During this time he toured with friends and jazz greats, John Dankworth and his singer wife Cleo Laine. Malcom has sung and recorded with a range of international performers including Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. He has recorded with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and has released nine studio albums. In 1990 he received the Commemoration Medal for services to Music and the Trust Bank Excellence Award. His love of music has long been accompanied by a love of art, resulting in a collection of works acquired over 50 years.