Laurence Aberhart

Aotearoa New Zealand, b.1949

View

  • 1980
  • Photograph
  • Purchased, 1992
  • 390 x 570mm
  • 92/84.1-15

View is an album of fifteen photographs. For the exhibition Picturing the Peninsula (21 April - 22 July 2007), the album was opened to display the photograph Lyttelton Heads, Lyttelton. It was displayed with this label:

Concrete gun emplacements are scattered around Lyttelton Harbour, remnants of past threats to the Harbour’s security. The harbour has been fortified on numerous occasions in the past including the perceived Russian threat in 1885 and the Japanese threat during World War II. Aberhart’s sweeping view from the inner harbour incorporates the gun slit of the fortification as a dramatic framing device on the scene. The black edges contrast jarringly with the softer tones of the harbour and surrounding hills.

Aberhart began his photographic career in the late 1960s and taught photography at the Canterbury University School of Fine Arts from 1977 to 1981. He lived and worked in Lyttelton through the 1970s and early 1980s.

Exhibition History