Schoon Theo
Theodorus Johannes Schoon 1915 - 1985
Theo Schoon was born in the Dutch East Indies, recieved art training in Holland and migrated to New Zealand in 1939. He lived much of his life here after that.
In 194 he commenced fieldwork in the South Islandrecording Maori rock art. His recordings were initialy oil painings on board but later photographs. His work was sponsored by Canterbury Museum and Roger Duff took part in some of the fieldwork. The sponsorship covered little of the cost. Schoon persisted with fieldwork until 195 . The fullest account of his work is that of Roberts [1]. There is one contemporary account by Schoon himself though written in the third person [2]. Schoon stands accused of having retouched the drawings during this work. Fomison [3] reviews the evidence for this - which is clear. Schoon provdes some self defence [4].
Some of the records he made are the only surviving records of sites now gone, but the use of greasy crayon in retouching some of the pictures is hard to forgive.
Schoon's personal art was in painting, photograpy and carving of gourds. He is a relatively minor figure, perhaps best known for his influence on others, including Len Castle, Art [5] fabric prints utilising his records made by Rex Fairburn and Rita Angus [6], who painted a portrait of Schoon and he of her.
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