Desmond W. Helmore

• Name — Des Helmore • Born — 1940 • Education — Ilam School of Fine Arts, Christchurch • Occupation — * Artist • Illustrator • Known for — New Zealand Arthropod Collection • Illustration — Drawing of Lecanomerus sharpi by Helmore, made in 2004 for the New Zealand Arthropod Collection

• Illustration — A 1979 Des Helmore drawing of the weevil Helmoreus sharpi; the genus was named after him. Helmore was born in Takapau, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand, and lived there on a farm until age 12. Interested in drawing since childhood, he attended Christ's College in Christchurch, and then the Ilam School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury from 1959 to 1962, where he was taught by Rudi Gopas, Russell Clark, and Bill Sutton. His fellow students at Ilam included Dick Frizzell, Tony Fomison, and John Panting. In his survey of New Zealand art, Frizzell described Helmore as someone who "seemed to have already graduated from somewhere else. All that quiet abstract pondering. I [Frizzell] couldn't believe he knew what he was doing, because I certainly didn't." At this time Helmore, through beatnik culture, became interested in Zen Buddhism and Taoism. He won a life-painting prize, and graduated in 1963 with a Diploma of Fine Arts (Hons). After working in London from 1967 to 1969, Helmore returned to New Zealand and lived in Auckland for over 40 years. He moved to Hastings in 2018.

• Illustration — Helmore and his art, taken in 2018 in his Hastings home Since leaving art school Helmore has continued painting. His work has been described by Dick Frizzell as having a "strangely dense atmosphere" and critic T.J. McNamara has referred to its "lonely vertical shapes" and "dim and strange" light. After being influenced by constructivism and cubism in the 1960s, he began painting depictions of rural landscapes after about 1985. Since 2000 his work has focussed on depictions of urban environments. His first solo show was in 1964 at the Hawke's Bay Art Gallery, Napier. In 1965 he received a Merit Award for the Manawatu Contemporary Art Competition, which was followed in 1966 by a solo exhibition at the Manawatu Art Gallery (now Te Manawa) in Palmerston North. While living in London he had a solo show at the B. H. Corner Gallery in 1968, and in 1972 he was a finalist in the Benson & Hedges Art Awards. Helmore has exhibited since 1990 in solo and group shows at the Auckland galleries Lopdell House, Claybrook, Anna Bibby, Jane Sanders Art, and nkb Gallery. He has also exhibited at Ramp Gallery in Hamilton, the Hastings City Art Gallery, and, in 2017, at Spa_ce Gallery, Napier. Reviewing his 2011 solo exhibition at Jane Sanders Art, for The New Zealand Herald, T.J. McNamara said: His work is in a number of collections, including those of Christchurch Art Gallery, the University of Canterbury, the Hocken Library, the Canterbury Society of Arts, and Hawke's Bay Art Gallery.