HamishKeith
- Writer
- Presenter
Hamish Keith’s long career as an arts writer and administrator also includes important contributions to New Zealand television. Credited with the first TV documentary on New Zealand art, 1962's Waterfall to Waterfall, he went on to arts shows Profiles (1982) and Qantas award-winner The Big Picture (2007). As a writer on iconic drama series Pukemanu, he demonstrated his belief that New Zealanders must see themselves on-screen.
Screenography
Biography
Although he has made many appearances on New Zealand TV screens, Hamish Keith is perhaps best known as a writer on art — especially An Introduction to New Zealand Painting, the 1969 book he wrote with Gordon H Brown, which sparked much debate over its emphasis on the “harsh clarity of New Zealand light”. Keith's long and influential career boasts many notable achievements; as a broadcaster, scriptwriter, graphic designer, arts administrator and commentator on — and advocate for — the unique culture of Aotearoa.
Awards
2013 Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit
For services to the arts
2008 Qantas Film and Television Awards
Best Factual Series: The Big Picture
Nominated for Best Television Presenter - Factual/Entertainment: for The Big Picture
“...it was not a series about art at all, but a series about us. I was given the marvellous gift of climbing that metaphorical range of hills and looking back across my life and beyond, and reporting on the culture to which I belonged. And those hills were sunny, for apart from a dark gully or two nothing I saw made me think that this was a country for pessimists. It gave me the enduring image of our culture as a marvellously braided river. ”