This sculpture represents the brothers Tāne and Tūpai, the youngest sons of Papatūānuku and Ranginui. His arm extended taut, Tāne uplifts the sky to let the light in. In his other hand he holds ngā kete o te wānanga, the baskets of knowledge retrieved from Te Tihi-o-Manono in the highest of the twelve heavens. Here they resemble an academic scroll. Tūpai holds the whatu-kura, hukātai and rehutai: stones of learning and knowledge, adorned with kōwhaiwhai.

Fred Graham is one of a generation of hugely influential Māori artists – Ralph Hotere, Cliff Whiting, Kāterina Mataira, Selwyn Wilson, Pauline Yearbury, Muru Walters and Arnold Manaaki Wilson among them – who brought their knowledge of pūrākau and tikanga based practices such as whakāiro into connection with Western abstraction and modernist forms. Many of these artists also worked for the Department of Education as art advisors through the1950s and 1960s, passing on their knowledge in the classroom. Speaking in a 2024 interview about his generation’s engagement with modernism, Graham reflects, “We started looking at art from a different angle. We started to evolve our own form of art...we [felt that we] should be expressing life as [as it is] the time we are living in, because in turn this becomes history.”

Tāne and Tūpai was commissioned by the University to mark the opening of the Cotton science building in 1975. Carved in kauri and tōtara, the stylised forms draw on an account Tāne and Tūpai found in S. Percy Smith’s The Lore of the Whare Wānanga (1913), which was given to the artist as a brief for the commission. Graham intended the work to stand high on its plinth so that we would have to lift our gaze to see it: standing on the ground and looking toward the sky. The positioning of this work in our window is one acknowledgement of the artist’s passing in May 2025. Moe mai rā, e te rangatira.

Fred Graham (Ngāti Korokī Kahukura, Tainui) was born in Arapuni and grew up in Horahora, in the Waikato. He trained as a teacher at Ardmore and Dunedin Teachers College and worked as an arts advisor in Rotorua, Te Tai Tōkerau, and subsequently across Te Ika-a-Māui. Graham is one of the ‘class of 66’, who featured in the exhibition of modern Māori art organised by artists Paratene Matchitt and Cliff Whiting in Kirikiriroa Hamilton in 1966. His work was included in Te Waka Toi: Contemporary Māori Art which toured the United States in 1981. In 2017, Graham received Te Tohu mō Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu Award at Te Waka Toi Awards; in 2018 he was the recipient of an Icon Award from the Arts Foundation and named an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to Māori art, and in 2024 he was one of five artists to be included in the Venice Biennale, alongside Sandy Adsett (Ngāti Pahauwera), Brett Graham (Ngāti Korokī Kahukura, Tainui); art collective Mataaho: Erena Baker, Sarah Hudson, Bridget Reweti, Terri Te Tau; and Selwyn Te Ngareatua Wilson (Ngāti Manu, Ngāti Hine). An exhibition of Graham’s work spanning the past 70 years, Toi Whakaata / Reflections, is currently on display at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, until October 2025.