lit a candle 7 Sept 2026A master who made prints affordable, who believed art wasn't for the wealthy few. We need more artists like that now. Goodbye, Barry.
Their story
Barry Vickerman Cleavin was born in Dunedin, New Zealand, in December 1939 (Te Papa Collections records the day as 18 December). He attended King's High School from 1953 to 1958. After early working years that, he later said, mainly taught him what he did not want to do, he moved…
Barry Vickerman Cleavin was born in Dunedin, New Zealand, in December 1939 (Te Papa Collections records the day as 18 December). He attended King's High School from 1953 to 1958. After early working years that, he later said, mainly taught him what he did not want to do, he moved to Christchurch in 1963 and entered the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts. His lecturers included Rudi Gopas and Bill Sutton; his major was painting. He completed a Diploma of Fine Arts with Honours in 1966 (some gallery CVs and the ArtSchool 125 interview also reference 1967 dating of the DipFA). Peer group names he recalled include Rodney Wilson, Tom Kreisler, John Parker, Phil Trusttum and others. The school's print room was poorly resourced, yet it became the foundation of a lifelong belief in what he called graphic literacy: printmaking as a visual discipline equal to any other fine art.
He did not follow most classmates into teachers' college. Instead he sponsored his own print practice by tutoring on and off, including at Christchurch Polytechnic's graphic design department, until his appointment in 1978 as senior lecturer in printmaking at Canterbury's School of Fine Arts. He taught full time for twelve years, with sabbaticals, and retired around age fifty to return to full-time making. In 1972 a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council scholarship took him to the Honolulu Academy of Arts to work with Gabor Peterdi, author of Printmaking and a Yale professor, who cemented Cleavin's respect for the craft. In 1983 he was Fulbright Fellow at the Tamarind Institute of Lithography in Albuquerque. He represented New Zealand at print biennales in Berlin, Krakow, Ljubljana, Paris, Sapporo, San Francisco, Tokyo and elsewhere.
His imagery is hallmarked by wry surrealism, punning titles, animal skeletons, silhouetted horsemen and shadow patterns, often carrying sharp political or environmental commentary. Auckland Art Gallery's touring survey Ewe & Eye (1982) made him nationally visible and also stirred controversy over erotic plates. The Robert McDougall Art Gallery (now Christchurch Art Gallery) mounted The Elements of Doubt in 1997, about 110 prints with museum skeletons juxtaposed against etched birds, simians and negotiating tables. Around 2000 his son gave him a computer; after a sceptical fortnight Cleavin embraced inkjet and digital montage, producing news-feed satires such as The Secretary of War or Donald's Nightmares and the 2013 Christchurch Art Gallery Outer Spaces show 24 Hr News Feed with Locust Jones. Later Dunedin years brought 36 Views of Hereweka (Brett McDowell 2016; Chambers Wintering Over 2017), a Hokusai homage with Harbour Cone in place of Fuji, gifted in full to the Suter by Dame Ann and John Hercus; The Exact Enigma at the Suter (2015); and Mitigating Factors at Brett McDowell for his 80th year (2019), including an Oncology Suite after a brush with cancer.
He was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2001 New Year Honours for services to the arts (listed under Officers on the DPMC roll; some institutional blurbs wrongly say Member). In 2005 the University of Canterbury conferred an honorary Doctor of Letters, calling him one of the country's most inventive, forceful and prodigious artists and praising his belief that art should be accessible at a reasonable price, not the preserve of the affluent. Students he taught include Marian Maguire, Jason Greig, Marty Vreede, Amanda Floyd and others; as Head of Printmaking he forged links with leading artists including Ralph Hotere.
After the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes he and partner, artist Denise (Dee) Copland, left a damaged city without a proper library or art gallery. They bought a Portobello house with space for two studios and moved permanently south in 2013. Cleavin worked five to six hours a day in a converted four-car garage with a heavy etching press, drawing Hereweka and reducing the world, as he put it, to absurdity so it became manageable. Dunedin was turangawaewae; son Chaim Cleavin also lived there. Melinda Johnston's Lateral Inversions: The Prints of Barry Cleavin (Canterbury University Press, 2013), with memories by T. L. Rodney Wilson, surveyed decades of plates. With A. K. Grant he co-authored A Series of Allegations or Taking Allegations Seriously (Hazard Press, 1988). His works are held by Te Papa, Auckland Art Gallery, Christchurch Art Gallery, Govett-Brewster, the Suter and other public collections.
Barry Cleavin died on 6 September 2026, aged 86. New Zealand press announced the death of a respected international artist; cause of death was not made public. He leaves a body of prints that treat bones, horsemen, newsfeeds and Harbour Cone as cautionary tales for a democracy that can still read on paper.
Biography adapted from EN Wikipedia Barry Cleavin; Te Papa Collections agent/450; UC honorary DLitt citation; DPMC New Year Honours 2001; Christchurch Art Gallery ArtSchool 125 interview and Bulletin 173; CAG Elements of Do.
In their own words
“Art school was the foundation of everything that has happened to me after I graduated in 1966. Any experiences before that simply defined what it was that I didn't want to do.”
ArtSchool 125 interview with Peter Vangioni, September 2007 (Christchurch Art Gallery)
“Mostly I reduce the world to absurdity; in that form it is manageable.”
ODT workshop profile, 2018 (echoing earlier Ewe & Eye catalogue language)
“I believe art should be readily accessible to all at a reasonable price and not be the preserve of the affluent.”
Belief attributed in University of Canterbury honorary doctorate citation
“The print is the last bastion of creative democracy.”
Shared Lines: Christchurch / Sendai artist statement on Little Prelude and earthquake catharsis
“It's everything. That's the germ of anything that I think of.”
On drawing, ODT Portobello workshop interview, 2018
“We sit in a comfortable chair, drink our drinks and eat our food. Six o'clock, the news, horrors abound. We, the accessories.”
Accessories folio artwork text, quoted in CAG Bulletin on 24 Hr News Feed inkjet works
Photos
1Barry Cleavin in front of his artworks at Brett McDowell Gallery, Dunedin, 29 November 2019
by People Forever
Your mother was wise. He believed that too.