A Vital Record
In 1983, echoing Joni Mitchell’s ‘you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone’,1 New Zealand Herald reviewer T.J. McNamara observed: ‘Sometimes one does not realise the extent of an artist’s contribution until he has gone away.’ The occasion was a retrospective exhibition by Anthony Stones (1934–2016), who had ‘departed for fresh fields and pastures new’.2 Stones had recently relocated to England, where he was born, to pursue his career as a sculptor. He subsequently undertook major commissions and received recognition both in the United Kingdom and, from the early 2000s, China. At the same time he continued to work on projects involving New Zealand subjects, which are the focus of this article.
Born in Glossop, North Derbyshire, Anthony Stones showed an early aptitude for drawing,3 and attended the Manchester Regional College of Art for a year. But his art education was terminated when his father, a dyer in a cotton mill, decided there were better prospects for his family in New Zealand.
They emigrated in 1952, settling in Henderson, West Auckland, and for 16-year-old Stones the move was ‘a crushing blow’ to the new-found freedom he had enjoyed in the art-school environment.4 However, the Elam School of Fine Arts records that Cyril Anthony Stone [sic] did enrol as a part-time student in 1953 in four subjects: Common Objects [drawing], Lettering, Still Life, and Modelling.5
At first Stones undertook a succession of labouring jobs, but was soon meeting and mingling with local writers and artists. In September 1957 he began an association with literary publication , providing cover drawings and designs for the first 14 issues, from September 1957 to August 1966, and also acting as assistant editor to Robin Dudding for the 13 issues from December 1960 to May 1970. From the outset published literary works by the likes of Frank Sargeson, R.A.K. Mason, Barry Crump, Kevin Ireland and Hone Tuwhare, all of whom would later become subjects for Stones’ drawings and/or sculpted heads. His involvement with ended after the May 1970 issue, and the following year one of his drawings was used to illustrate a story by Maurice Gee in . Dudding also left , and in 1972 established , which provided further opportunities for Stones; in 1974 his drawings accompanied contributions by writers Patricia Grace, Frank Sargeson and Janet Frame’s 1984 tribute to Sargeson. The latter was a particularly important In 1978 Stones would recall how he had considered Sargeson ‘the most distinguished-looking person’ he had ever met: ‘I thought his brow magnificent and imagined modelling his head in clay.’
