John Drawbridge

John Drawbridge, (1930-2005), New Zealand painter and printmaker.
Drawbridge travelled to London in 1957 to study at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, and his paintings and prints were soon being shown in a number of London galleries - the Redfern, Zwemmer and Piccadilly and the Royal Academy. After three years he went to Paris for a year with his English-born wife, the sculptor and silversmith Tanya Ashken, and studied in the studios of the printmakers SW Hayter and Johnny Friedlander.

Returning to London he was commissioned to paint a giant mural for New Zealand House in the Haymarket, and created a work which was remarkable for the way in which the spirit of the New Zealand landscape was conveyed through processes of abstraction influenced by Europe, America and Polynesia.

After Drawbridge returned to New Zealand in 1963 other major commissions followed, culminating in 1976 in the Beehive Mural which he made for New Zealand's new parliament building in Wellington. He demonstrated during this time an adventurous ability to explore new materials, painting on metal slats and using Perspex to transmit patterned lights through canvas forms.