Peter McLeavey

Winner of:
New Zealand Post 2014 Book of the Year, Best Non-Fiction Book

From Montana award-winning author Jill Trevelyan comes the first biography of Peter McLeavey, the charismatic, pioneering art dealer who since the 1950s has shaped-even transformed-New Zealand art. McLeavey's personal story is remarkable but in it, his contemporaries will recognise common themes: the religious upbringing; the struggle to be bohemian in a repressive, midcentury small town; the quiet agonies of marriage and children, the need to make a mark. Through exclusive access to McLeavey's extensive and hitherto untapped archive of letters, diaries, exhibition files and more, this book offers insights into the artists McLeavey has represented across half a century. Here, in their own words-lively, salty, and often heartbreaking-are Colin McCahon, Toss Woollaston, Len Lye, Milan Mrkusich, Michael Smither, Gordon Walters, Michael Illingworth, Don Driver, Robin White, John Reynolds, Yvonne Todd, and many, many more. Far more than a simple biography, this is the big story of contemporary New Zealand art itself, in a period of massive change and growth, and Trevelyan offers an utterly fresh and compelling historical account of the birth of the modern art market and the status of art today. A must-read for anyone interested in New Zealand's art, culture or recent history.