Creative companions to launch fest programme
Two of the country's most celebrated visual artists, and great mates, will launch this year's Queenstown Writers Festival programme.
Painter Dick Frizzell's coming to Queenstown to discuss his new memoir, Hastings, with Central Otago's Sir Grahame Sydney on August 31.
Writers fest chair Tanya Surrey's delighted the titans of Aotearoa art have agreed to be part of the programme launch, details of which will be revealed after the pair's chat.
Frizzell's known for his kiwiana paintings, including 'Mickey to Tiki', along with landscapes and still life, but he's also a gifted story-teller — Hastings, his fifth book, is a childhood memoir and love letter to a small regional town and his parents.
Described as "funny, big-hearted and sharply drawn", it includes 30 short stories, each conjuring a moment of his Hawke's Bay childhood.
Kiwi artist and author Sir Grahame Sydney will be part of a special event in Queenstown next month.
Meantime Sir Grahame — knighted in the 2021 Queen's Birthday Honours for services to art — is known from his decades painting Central Otago landscapes, but he's also authored several books.
He can't remember meeting Frizzell, but remembers considering himself a "little faraway regionalist painter from the insignificant south", describing Frizzell as a "trendy, contemporary, up and out there famous Aucklander". While Sir Grahame says Frizzell was "much older than me", Mountain Scene understands the age gap's about five years.
He says Frizzell was "all the things I wasn't" — "charismatic and confident and probably as rich as Croesus", and he boasted a "fabulous" head of hair.
Sir Grahame says he's got "immense admiration" for Frizzell's many talents.
While best known as an artist, he's also a "wonderful" writer and a "demon" ukulele player.
"The only thing he can't do is sing," he quips.
Tickets for the festival launch with Frizzell and Sir Grahame went on sale Thursday, via Eventfinda.
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