67 Otitori Bay Road

Colin McCahon in the Living Room. Photo: Barry Millar Oct. 1957

Colin and Ann  in the Living Room. Photo: Barry Millar Oct. 1957

Undoubtedly one of Colin McCahon’s motives for purchasing the house in Otitori Bay Rd was cost. Such dwellings were relatively cheap and the McCahons were not well-off.

Ever since Colin and Anne’s marriage in 1942 housing had presented difficulties for the growing family. In 1948, for instance, when they had to leave their house in Tahunanui, Nelson, and unable to find a house they could afford anywhere in the country, the family was forced to separate for about a year. Colin moved to Christchurch, where he lived in a washhouse that served as both bedroom and studio, located behind the house of his Dunedin friend the painter Doris Lusk (Holland), but Anne and the children had to go to Dunedin to live with her parents. Eventually, the family was reunited in a small house in Barbour Street, Linwood, a working-class suburb of Christchurch.

Colin jumped at the chance of a job at the Auckland City Art Gallery, a more salubrious occupation for an artist than the seasonal work in orchards, gardening, and builder’s labouring which he had done previously (he also made costume jewellery to sell). Even so, the house they acquired in Titirangi was small and fairly primitive, and the early months in Auckland, which corresponded with winter—cold and damp in the kauri forest on the southward-facing slopes—were fairly grim. According to Colin:

We came to Auckland in 1953 and lived in Titirangi in a tiny house at French Bay. It rained almost solidly during May, June, July and August. For the first month we lived almost entirely on a diet of potatoes, parsley, and bags of rock-cakes given by a kind and ancient aunt. (Colin McCahon a survey, 1972, p. 22)

On the deck, left to right, Diana Millar, Colin McCahon, Anne McCahon, Peter Tennant, Pat Hanly, Connie Larsen Photo Barry Millar Oct. 1957

Nevertheless—particularly once the summer arrived and Colin had made some necessary alterations—he spoke positively to his friends about their new home.  His enthusiasm for the Auckland and Titirangi environment and his intense involvement in making alterations to the new house and establishing a garden are evident in extracts from letters to his Christchurch friend, the writer John Caselberg:

14 July 1954:

Am in a rush, trying to catch up with letters & such things—I seem to be spending nearly all my time doing carpentry around the house. And I want to start on some painting—sometime but must get things working at home first of all. Have ordered some timber on the strength of your money [for a painting Caselberg had bought]. We always seem to strike places without shelves—or possibly we need lots more than most people.

20 July 1954:

Spent Sat & Sun in the garden—did quite some digging—for vegetables—& some fancy work for my soul. Planted beans & some silver beet & cabbages & about 200 ferns of various sorts in the kauri patch—am planning drifts of ferns in places & drifts of a very softly yellow green small shrub that grows here—a native—it could be a myrtle and a gradual removal of all the wrong things to a safer distance from the native stuff…Have planted 3 clumps of toe-toe to look at themselves in the pond—this tonight—was down there in the dark—in rain & mud it was gently lovely and sweet and so quiet after Barbour St. And this—all this here changing my painting—not that I’ve yet really started painting but am planning—and sorting out the layers—and now lean towards the direction of the ‘bridges’ rather than abstracts [a reference to On Building Bridges (1952), completed in Christchurch].  And feel the need for warmth—felt here in the whole Auckland confusion & people as not in Chch [sic]. This has been a most necessary move. Its good to feel at home and not a foreigner.

21 March 1954

Have just acquired a 12ft dinghy. Have been rushing home to get it painted & have worked on it all today & yesterday with a friend—the launching next weekend. It’s magnificent to be a boat owner—only we can’t really afford it—are still building onto the house & doing alterations. Am leading a most incredibly busy life. At home & at work—so are we all. The kids had the best summer holiday ever—at the beach & in the bush all the time—almost none of the Chch boredom, and all so brown & well. Anne too & much happier than in Chch.

21 July 1954:

Have been doing enormous alterations in the house & garden, should be done by the time the good weather begins—Did I tell you we had a boat—a 14ft job. Can escape into the nearby bays for a change. Its quite exciting this change of scene, by water… Can offer you accommodation here for time at least after Xmas—will have the garage converted to a studio by then—or failing that—can sleep 2 extra in the home—one in comfort & one less so.

21 September 1954:

Have been very rushed both work here & at home. Still building bits & pieces on the house & finishing off half done jobs. The weather is becoming much better & the beach & boating season is almost here so want all finished by then.

In the early summer of 1955, McCahon’s friend and supporter, the poet and Landfall editor Charles Brasch, visited at Titirangi and recorded in his journal for Sunday 13 November a vivid account of the day:

Spent today with the McCahons at Titirangi; we sat on the beach before lunch while the children bathed, then all afternoon till dusk on their terrace platform that seems suspended amidst the forest, the slender kauris with their light spring green rising from the leafage below & soaring high above. A deep murmur of insects in the forest, native pigeons flying now & then away from the trees, moreporks calling after dark…

As the afternoon wound on various friends and neighbours dropped in: Gerhard Rosenberg, Kase Jackson, a painter, and his family, and John Caselberg with his great dane, Thor (whose death later  led to McCahon’s monumental 16 panel-work The Wake, 1958, which incorporated Caselberg’s long poem of lament for his beloved dog); Brasch’s journal entry concluded:

It was a happy day. The McCahon children are delightfully natural & spontaneous & alert & also civilized—I've always been fond of them. [quoted with the kind permission of the Hocken Library and the Charles Brasch estate]

Caselberg had moved to a house in nearby Wood Bay earlier that year, but in 1956 returned temporarily to Christchurch. A letter from Colin shows that he was still busy with d.i.y.  alterations:

20 August 1956:

Your letter made me long for the cold south again—but that is probably years away—& Titirangi—now that the rain has stopped is lovely again. Am still hard at work on the house & a bit fed up with it all.

Alterations continued virtually up to the time the McCahons left for the city in 1960.