'Dear Mr Fairburn': Rex Fairburn, Theo Schoon and Maori rock art: 'New Zealand's Oldest Art Galleries'

Abstract

In his seminar 'Cultural Spirals' at the Stout Research Centre on 24 September 1997, Peter Cleave described the use of Maori images by Cordon Waiters and other pakeha artists and mentioned in passing the activities of Theo Schoon and Rex Fairbum. Frank Rogers here gives more detail of the involvement of these two men in recording and using the Maori rock drawings. These works do not appear to have been claimed by iwi as taonga so that they have not been subject to the kind of restraints upon pakeha use as Peter Cleave has described in other cases.