Monumental Ted Dutch Modernist Painting, 1965

An exceptional large-scale modernist painting by New Zealand artist Ted Dutch, dated 1965. Executed in richly textured mixed media on board, the work layers black, white, ochre, rust and grey into a dense abstract composition with a strong sense of depth, structure and movement.

London-born Edwin "Ted" Dutch trained at St Martin's School of Art before emigrating to Auckland in 1951. Initially working in animation, graphic design and commercial screenprinting, he began producing fine-art screenprints in the early 1960s before expanding his practice into painting and sculpture.

His early work reflected the rapidly changing technological world of the post-war period, moving between abstraction and imagery drawn from architecture, machinery and the human figure. This 1965 painting captures that tension particularly well, with fractured forms and layered surfaces that suggest an urban or architectural landscape without becoming fully representational.

In 1967, Dutch became a founding member of the New Zealand Print Council and began exhibiting with Auckland's influential New Vision Gallery. His engagement with European abstraction is also documented through artist Mervyn Williams, who worked in Dutch's Auckland studio and later recalled the influence of Portuguese-born painter Maria Helena Vieira da Silva on both Dutch and Milan Mrkusich.