Please note: This artwork is no longer on display
Curriculum links
Learning area
The Arts
Which strands will it fit with?
The Visual Arts - Communicating and Interpreting in the Visual Arts, Understanding the Visual Arts in Context
Key Competencies
Thinking, Using language, symbols, and text, Relating to others
Levels of achievement
Levels 1-4
Year groups
Years 1-13
Which topics of study can it support?
- New Zealand Art and Artists
- Famous New Zealanders
- New Zealand Icons
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How long might this take?
Allow 10-15 minutes.
Why should I take my class to visit this?
- See a painting by one of New Zealand’s best-known artists, Colin McCahon.
- This is an excellent introduction to an iconic New Zealand artist.
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What is there to do there?
- Walk the length of this artwork. How many steps does it take to get from one end to the other?
- Could you walk past it another way? (You could try spider-walking, caterpillar crawling, or even moon walking!)
What should I know about this?
- Walk (Series C) was painted by Colin McCahon in 1973 in his studio at Muriwai. It is the third work in a series.
- The artwork consists of eleven ‘panels’ of jute painted with acrylic, which are hung in a long landscape format. The size of this artwork requires the viewer to virtually walk north from the artist’s Muriwai studio, along the west coast between Auckland and Northland.
- The panels are numbered with Roman numerals in reference to the Stations of the Cross (a popular Catholic devotion which commemorates the Passion of Jesus Christ - his sufferings from his arrest to his death on the Cross). Each of these stations provides a focus to pause for reflection.
- Walk (Series C) also refers to the Māori belief in the journey of the souls of those who have passed on. They travel above the shoreline on their way to Cape Reinga and then on to the ancestral homeland of the Māori, Hawaiki.
- The cycle of life and death is also represented in this artwork by the ebbing and flowing of the tides. McCahon seems to have been preoccupied with immortality when he made this painting - a time when close friends, including James K Baxter, had recently died.
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Possible topics for discussion
- Would you hang this painting in your home? Why/why not?
- What messages do you think Colin McCahon was trying to get across in Walk (Series C)? What clues can you find in this painting to support your argument?
- What does the title Walk (Series C) refer to? (The title indicates this is the third work in a series. McCahon was also referring to a number of things with the word ‘walk’ - the Catholic devotion of the Stations of the Cross, the Māori belief of the journey of the soul from Cape Reinga to Hawaiki, and the cycle of life and death.)
- If you were going to produce a similar work with a limited paint palette of just three colours, which colours would you choose and why?
Further information
- Brown, Gordon H. 1993. Colin McCahon: Artist. Auckland: Reed Books
- 1985. Introducing Our New Zealand Artists: Colin McCahon. Christchurch: Robert McDougall Art Gallery
- 1984. I Will Need Words: Colin McCahon's Word and Number Paintings. Wellington: National Art Gallery
- Te Papa’s recent acquisitions
- http://www.mccahonhouse.org.nz/ - an interesting website which looks at the years 1953-60 when Colin McCahon lived at Titirangi
- http://www.mccahon.co.nz/ - an interesting website which lets you browse works by Colin McCahon
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