Artist Details

Colin V. Wheeler from

Colin V Wheeler

Colin was born in Dunedin in 1919.

Colin Wheeler is an Otago man, both by birth and residence. He took up commercial art as a career, studying first at the Canterbury School of Art and then at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts in London; and subsequently became an art teacher at Waitaki Boys’ High School.

He is now retired, and living in Oamaru. He has held several solo exhibitions of his painting, and is very well known for his Historic High Country Sheep Station books.
His favourite subject matter includes buildings, the landscape and related activities, and his well-known books chronicling the old sheep stations of New Zealand reflect this interest. These books were commissioned by the publisher AH & AW Reed. The research for these became both a labour of love and an odyssey, with both him and his wife traveling for up to twelve months at a time, staying at the old homesteads that he portrayed.
Colin explored the sheep stations all over the country and produced four popular books. With his sketch pad and his oils, watercolours and biro, Colin recorded on each property its special and distinctive features, chronicling its past and present management practices and the history of the local families.
His work has been keenly collected throughout the six decades that he has been painting and is exhibited in numerous public and private collections throughout New Zealand as well as abroad.
Colin’s paintings can be viewed in many New Zealand public galleries including the Christchurch Public and the Forester Public Art Galleries.
Colin has won the National Bank Art Competition and has had numerous placings in the distinguished Kelliher Art Competition.

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