Summers (1947–2019)

I first came across Llew Summers in the mid-1980s when he exhibited at Auckland’s Aberhart North Gallery. The works, carved in marble and wood (alongside several cast in bronze), were small in size and reflected characters in various modes of sporting activities (scoring a try, holding a cricket bat, running). With their radical foreshortening, noting how odd it was that, in a nation as sport obsessed as ours, few artists tackled such in their work. I visited Llew at his Christchurch home that summer and a friendship sprang up. It lasted until his death at the age of 72 at the beginning of August.