Fred Graham Creator of Forms, Te Tohunga Auaha

Winner of the Arts category of the Ngā Kupu Ora Aotearoa Māori Book Awards 

Fred Graham is a leading figure in New Zealand’s art world. He started his career as an art teacher, and since 1984, he has been a full-time sculptor, producing a wealth of work, and holding sell-out exhibitions. His work is displayed in public spaces in New Zealand and several Pacific Rim countries.

This book is richly illustrated with photographs of the artworks by award-winning photographer Geoff Dale, and it includes essays by Professor Jonathan Mane-Wheoki, Professor Robert Jahnke and Dr Jill Smith that discuss Fred Graham’s work in the context of New Zealand art.

210 x 250mm, 200 pages, softcover
ISBN: 978-1-775-50134-3
Cost: $49.99
Available from Huia Publishing: www.huia.co.nz

Island View

Hahei was once part of a large coastal farm and one of the children who grew up on that farm, Charles Harsant, tells his story. Charles grew up free range and barefoot. There were no roads and travel was by horseback or boat. Charles’ wife Ann grew up in wartime England and as a young woman toured New Zealand in a Model A Ford.

Ann describes her first view of Hahei: “It was as if we had landed on a desert island. There wasn’t a footprint to be seen and the sand was made up of tiny pink shells which glowed in the setting sun. It was truly beautiful.”

The Harsant Brothers started farming in Hahei in 1912 and their descendants are still farming in the area. This book is a rich family history with tales of gum digging, kauri felling, soldiering and breaking in the land. It traces the family’s emigrant roots in England in the 1850s to modern day Hahei and is lavishly illustrated.

260 x 200 mm, 237 pages, colour, softcover
ISBN 978-0-473-19039-2

Sid's War

This is not a tale of heroism in the trenches of World War I but of survival. Seven hundred kilometres of trenches wound through France and Belgium from the Swiss border to the North Sea, a daunting prospect for any soldier let alone a 16-year-old farm boy from Southern Hawkes Bay. Sid Stanfield describes ‘going over the top’, blundering through mud, weighed down by eighty pounds of equipment, ordered to ‘charge’ under machine gun fire while 12-pounder guns lobbed shells from behind. It was an impossible task and he knew it. Whether it was luck or skill, Sid proved to be adept at avoiding death. Wounded four times and gassed, he survived what has been dubbed New Zealand’s ‘Blackest Day’ at the Battle of Passchendaele when 843 men lost their lives. This is Sid’s story.

210 x 148 mm, 72 pages, colour, softcover
ISBN: 978-0-473-46623-7
Cost: $25
To order, email: mfdejong@slingshot.co.nz