James Ingram McDonald

James Ingram McDonald (born June 11, 1865 in Tokomairiro , Otago , † April 13, 1935 in Tokaanu ) was a New Zealand painter , filmmaker , museum director and cultural ambassador .

Live and act

James McDonald started painting at an early age and as a young man took art classes in Dunedin with James Nairn , Nugent Welch and Girolamo Nerli . He continued his art studies in Melbourne , Australia , but returned to New Zealand in 1901, where he worked as a photographer. From 1905 he was a museum assistant and draftsman in the Colonial Museum (later the Dominion Museum ). He began making films about various scenic attractions. At the museum he was responsible for maintaining the photographic collection and producing paintings, drawings and photographs for the Dominion Museum's bulletins.

A painting by James McDonald: "He taua! He taua", painted around 1906

He began to gather information about Maori tribal lore . His films show poi dances and weaving art. He was arguably the earliest known ethnographic filmmaker in New Zealand. In 1920 he filmed the Maori tribes gathering in Rotorua as they greeted the Prince of Wales and other aspects of the royal journey. He filmed traditional skills and activities, including building fishing nets and traps, weaving, digging kumara camps, and cooking food in a hangi. Most of his often unprocessed and fragmentary negatives did not become known until 1986 after the restoration by the New Zealand film archive.

In 1914 he was appointed interim director of the Dominion Museum due to the poor health of the incumbent, JA Thomson. His duties included the design of the New Zealand coat of arms, for which the royal commission was given on April 26, 1911. He was appointed Assistant Censor of Cinema Films in August 1918 and served for eight years.

In 1926, James McDonald was appointed to the Maori Arts Board of Directors, and in the same year he resigned from his museum positions. He moved to Tokaanu where he helped set up the Te Tuwharetoa School of Maori Arts and Crafts. His goals were to revive traditional art that was in danger of being lost and to encourage the Maori of Ngati Tuwharetoa to make handicrafts for sale at home and abroad. The school received no government subsidies, so McDonald and his family suffered significant financial difficulties. McDonald earned mutual trust and deep respect from local Maori.

The arts and crafts school he founded no longer exists, but numerous examples of McDonald's work have been preserved. Many hundreds of his photographic negatives are kept in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. There are prints of his works in the collections of the Alexander Turnbull Library and the Bernice P. Bishop Museum in Hawaii . The four ethnographic films he made are preserved in the collection of the New Zealand Film Archives Nga Kaitiaki or Nga Taonga Whitiahua.

family

On April 29, 1891, he married Mary (May) Brabin and had three daughters with her: Marjorie, Flora and Dorothy and a son, Donald Douglas. On the marriage certificate, James stated that he was an accountant, which suggests that he was unable to make a living as an artist.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Jonathan Dennis: McDonald, James Ingram. In: Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published 1996. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved August 3, 2018.