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George Thompson Pritchard (1878-1962)
Born: 11 April 1878, Havelock North, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand.
Died: 26 February 1962, Reseda, California, USA.
 
Havelock North was extremely lucky to be gifted a sizeable number of George
Thompson Pritchard paintings by the artist himself. Duart was chosen to be the kaitiaki
(guardian) of the paintings on display around the House and, in recent years, has had
all of them restored as funding permitted.

‘I got thinking rather fondly of Havelock having a modest little art gallery, to which I would
send some nice paintings to, and will my old masters to.’

- George Thompson Pritchard to Norman Smith, clerk of Havelock North Town
Board, 20 July 1949

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While Havelock North never got its modest little art gallery due to lack of funding, the Town
Board did receive a consignment of twenty-seven of George Thompson Pritchard’s ‘nice paintings’ from California in August 1950. An exhibition was held at the Havelock North Town Board Hall for one week (29 August-2 September 1950) where locals could view Pritchard’s rather generous gift. With nowhere to store them, the paintings were lent to well-known figures in the community. It would be nearly forty years before a large number of the paintings were once again displayed collectively. In the late 1980s, nineteen of them found their way to Duart House where they have adorned the walls ever since.

 

During the conservation process (begun in 2004), Iona College gave their Pritchard painting to Duart bringing the total number on display to twenty. The whereabouts of the other seven paintings from the consignment is unknown.
The Committee set up to look at fundraising for a Gallery in Havelock North was made up of the following people: William J. Rush (artist & architect), Mr H. W. Malden, Mrs Gwen W. Malden, Miss D. Turner, Mrs D. Carne, Mrs F. Miller, Mr K. W. H. Elliott, Mr Bernard Chambers, and Mr W. A. G. Penlington.

 

George was the son of Alfred Pritchard, a local cattle dealer and butcher, and his wife Emily
Jane Huggins. The Pritchards, who hailed from England, spent 5-6 years in Havelock (North), moving away when George was about 2 years old. Later in life, the artist yearned for a sense of connection and looked to his place of birth as the salve to that longing. A letter written in 1949, to the Havelock North Town Board Clerk, intimated that he had a desire to be buried in his birthplace, but it was a wish he hadn’t yet discussed with his wife. 
 

As he grew older, it was clear George was not only a talented artist but a gifted musician, the violin his instrument of choice. He was also a writer, cabinetmaker, engineer, and inventor. His letters show an intelligent man who was articulate, well-versed in a wide range of subjects, and unreservedly opinionated. After attending school in Whangarei, George went on to study art and sculpture at Elam School of Art (Auckland). Returning to the family home, now in Wanganui, George took up cabinetmaking to earn some money, while he painted and played his violin in his spare time. He moved to Taranaki and got a job in a furniture factory where, in November 1899, he lost the use of an arm in a horrendous accident. George never played the violin again but he continued to paint, and learned to frame his artworks, with just the one hand.
 

Over the next 15 years George travelled between New Zealand, Australia, and America, and the European centres of Amsterdam, Rome, Paris, and London. He studied at The Academy of Fine Arts in Melbourne, and spent time at The Julian Academy in Paris and the Vandertheldt Academy in Amsterdam.

During one extended visit home to Wanganui, George developed an automatic triple danger signal for railway crossings, which he patented in 1905. An ‘undoubtedly clever and ingenious’ design, the signal’s objective was to ‘minimise the present danger to life, limb and property of the general public’ (Wanganui Herald, 24 February 1905). Two years later, a syndicate had taken over George’s design and applied for patent rights for Australasia. George’s inventions did not stop there. There was a patent application for improvements in sliding sash windows (NZ 1905), and a patent lodged for a stencil hand stamp (Canada 1922). 
 

Various sources suggest George arrived in San Francisco in 1906 shortly after the devastating earthquake and fire. While his plan was to live permanently in America, this idea was short-lived. Instead, George headed to Australia where he apparently worked as a reporter in Melbourne before moving to Sydney to become political editor for the Sydney Morning Herald. It is difficult to confirm any of these statements as fact (they appear to repeat each other) despite lengthy and in-depth research. However, we do know that George was in Sydney in 1908 where he was showing off the little-known medium of monotone pastel painting, and that he left there on 21 December with his brother Edgar, also an artist, and sister Edith, arriving in San Francisco on 19 January 1909. The three siblings intended on making San Francisco their home. Within a year, George had moved to Milwaukee where he established himself as an art teacher. Edgar and Edith stayed in San Francisco for a few years before heading to New York where another brother, Sydney, had emigrated to. 
 

In 1913, George, now age 36, travelled to England to live and work. His plans were interrupted by the First World War (1914-1918), although he did manage to spend some time studying under Sir Alfred East, a member of the Royal Academy. Unable to enlist, due to being medically unfit for active service, George worked in a munitions factory in England as a machinist. And, in 1915, he got married to a young English girl, Lucy Valerie Woods in London.
After the war, George emigrated with his family – he now had 2 small children - first to New York, returning to England in early 1923, before moving back across the Atlantic to Montreal, Canada, and finally settling in the USA where he lived as a working artist, teacher, and writer. George was happiest when sitting in his studio listening to very loud classical music while simultaneously working on several paintings.

From 1925 George was residing in Virginia, and delivering lectures and exhibiting at universities and colleges across America, many purchasing his paintings at the time. He moved to California in 1935, with Valerie and their family of four children, where he opened a studio, first in Glendale and then Santa Monica. George continued to paint and teach for another ten years before retiring in 1946.
 
George Thompson Pritchard was a prolific and enthusiastic painter, producing hundreds of artworks over his lifetime. He also collected artworks and occasionally dabbled as an art dealer. George was primarily a painter of landscapes and seascapes depicting scenes from the many places he visited on his travels, although a few of his works are studies of animals and the human face and form. His early paintings, including various New Zealand scenes, were exhibited in Wanganui, Palmerston North, Wellington,
Nelson, and Invercargill. His favourite medium was oil on canvas but he also used watercolours, pastel monotone, and charcoal. The use of clean palette colours allowed him to create effects such as dappled light shimmering on water or filtering through trees, and his brushstrokes determined the mood of the painting whether it be the swift strokes to make stormy waves or the gentle touch of the brush to create a delicate morning mist.

 

Most, but not all, of Pritchard’s paintings bear his signature, and most came complete with the frame he had specifically made for that piece of work. Sources suggest he used pseudonyms on certain pieces: Jane Wilcox for still life and floral works, J. Kleinfeller for watercolours, L. Huntley for paintings of flowers done in England, Hewitt for watercolour scenes of North Africa, and van der Hoek for paintings of Dutch scenes.
Galleries around New Zealand exhibited and sold George’s ‘high-class’ and ‘excellent’ artworks but, when he left New Zealand permanently, his name and reputation as an artist quickly faded. George won a number of overseas awards and accolades for his ‘beautiful paintings’, which he exhibited in Australia, Europe and the USA; the latter was where he had the most success. One on display here at Duart – On the Zuyder Zee – received the top prize in an art show in Clearwater, California in 1940.
Following his retirement in 1946 George never again offered any of his work for sale, instead devoting his time to painting, and writing, for pleasure. As well as his gift to Havelock North, George sent his painting ‘The Peaceful End of the Glorious Revolution’, depicting the signing of the American Bill of Rights (1689), to the New Zealand Parliament, where it is still on display today. He also sent a collection of artworks by ‘old masters’ to the National Art Gallery in Wellington. Many of Pritchard’s canvases were commissioned, purchased, and/or exhibited by individual collectors, the Fifth Avenue Department Stores in New York,
and the universities and colleges he worked with. Others can be found in private and public
collections here and overseas.
George Thompson Pritchard was a member of the Masonic Order, the Glendale and Santa Monica art associations and of numerous art and literary organisations in New Zealand, Australia, Netherlands, and the United States. Shortly before his death he completed a book on world economics entitled Whom the Gods Destroy. 

George died, and was buried, in California, in 1962.
 

A note of further interest: George’s eldest brother, Alfred Percival Pritchard (Percy), followed in his father’s footsteps becoming a butcher. He returned to his place of birth and took up a job managing J.B Symes’ Havelock butcher shop in 1911. Percy stayed in Havelock for a few years before moving to Hastings. In the mid-1920s he and his wife Emily relocated to Nelson where Percy took up cabinetmaking.

 

Percy had married Emily Manners Gascoygne in 1901. Emily was the niece of Isabella Eliza Forsyth Gascoygne who had married John Greenwood in Motueka in 1858. In turn, John Greenwood was the uncle of Alfred Roger Greenwood who moved into Duart House in 1926. The house was purchased by the Greenwoods in the 1930s and gifted to the Hastings Council by the family in 1975.

 

The Paintings at Duart House
All the paintings at Duart House are landscapes and seascapes. Each one features water in some form – ocean, river, stream, canal, pond – in its composition. All are oil on canvas with original frames made by the artist.
Eighteen of the paintings in Duart House are signed: half have ‘G Thompson Pritchard’ on the lower left corner of the painting, the rest are on the lower right corner. Between 2004 and 2023 each painting was cleaned, had its paint stabilised, and a layer of varnish applied.
Duart House and Parliament are not the only facilities in Aotearoa-New Zealand to hold George Thompson Pritchard’s work. Paintings can also be found in the Museum of New Zealand-Te Papa Tongarewa (3), National Library of New Zealand-Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa (1), MTG Napier (1), and Nelson’s Suter Art Gallery (1).