The Story of a Rare Split Enz Artwork
The original painting for the Kiwi Pop-Music royalty band is in our Select online art auction. The artist, Raewyn Turner, joined us in our Mount Eden gallery to be reunited with her artwork.
Artist Raewyn Turner visited Webb’s to be reunited with her painting
The original artwork from the cover of Split Enz’s 1979 album Frenzy is in our current online art auction, Select and the story behind it is as colourful and 'pop' as the band itself. We explore some of the context in which this piece of New Zealand music history was brought into the world.
The album artwork Frenzy by Split Enz
Anyone who has ever attended a summer barbecue, wedding by the beach, pub crawl, sheep shearing competition or… any public event in Aotearoa for that matter, would have at least once been swept by the toe-tapping tunes and infectious lyrics of Split Enz.
Six Months in a Leaky Boat; History Never Repeats; I Got You; I See Red… the list of karaoke fire starters that the Finn Brothers unleashed upon the Land of the Long White Cloud is as endless as their charm and talent for a sticky melody and iconic guitar riff.
Alongside Tim and Neil there was a large contingency of collaborators who, from their early days, helped define not just their instantly recognisable sound but the entire ‘brand’ that made their success so meteoric.
That is the case of artist Raewyn Turner who between 1975 and 1983 acted as the band’s lighting and set designer, suffusing their renowned stage antics with a visual feast of colour and hue.
According to the artist’s own website: “I translated their music into the deepest saturated colour, employing after-images, coloured shadows, hand painted optical pattern projections, stop motion, UV, the darkness, monotones, optical illusions, contrast and emotional colour sequences.
Throughout, my endeavours were tied to my coloured music equivalents which I experienced with music. I regarded my work as art and it was often referred to as an integral part of the performances…”.
However, her contributions went well beyond the live music package and eventually, the Elam School of Fine Arts trained artist was commissioned a painting that would end up as the cover of Frenzy.
The 1979 album is said to have marked a turning point in the band’s sound and image from art-school shenanigans to a more polished enterprise that resulted in multiple awards and chart toppers around the English speaking world.
Raewyn Turner, A Thousand Acres, c.1977-78, oil on canvas, 895 x 1820mm, Estimate $12,000 - $22,000.
The painting portrays the band members standing in front of a somewhat dilapidated corrugated iron shed—a piece of New Zealand rural vernacular—while dozens of sheep face away, toward the snow-capped peaks in the distance. Although the whole scene at first reads like an idealised local pastoral, the colours are vivid and spotty, reminiscent perhaps of Turner’s own stage lighting as it falls upon the performer’s otherwise ‘hay coloured’ skin.
Webb’s is honoured to be bringing this exciting piece of New Zealand’s pop music history into the market for the first time in 45 years. It is an artwork that encapsulates a multitude of local influences and moments in pop history while retaining that toe-tapping, fun-infused nostalgia for kiwi summers and idyllic rural scenes.
To explore this and other exceptional pieces of New Zealand art, ready for a new or established collections and each with it's own layers of anecdotes and narratives, explore the full catalogue for Select. In it you will find artworks by the likes of Robin White, Emily Karaka, Michael Smither, Robert Jahnke, and more; this first Select offering of the year is a must-view for those looking to grow or diversify their art collections in 2025. We look forward to welcoming you to see these artworks in the Auckland gallery from 17— 24 February. Bidding closes online on Monday 24 February from 8pm.
An excerpt from our Select catalogue essay on this painting:
This visual transformation was intentionally reflected in the album’s artwork.
Unlike the extravagant costumes and elaborate makeup of their earlier years, the Frenzy cover showed the band in a relaxed pose in front of a typical New Zealand farm shed.
Tim Finn explained that the decision to abandon their previous flamboyance was intentional: “We deliberately wanted something of us without the costumes.
There’s no need to promote our image anymore – it’s our music that needs to be promoted.” (Bruce Milne, “Split Enz Blood n Guts Romantics,” Roadrunner, March 1979, 12–13.)
Split Enz formed in October 1972 with Tim Finn, Phil Judd, Mike Chunn, Miles Golding, and Mike Howard. Active until December 1984, the band saw many lineup changes. The final members included Finn, Eddie Rayner, Noel Crombie, Nigel Griggs, Neil Finn, and Paul Hester. They have reunited several times since disbanding.