This is the first time Povey’s works have been offered for sale in New Zealand. The exhibition includes paintings (1973 – 2015), drawings, lithographs and a bronze. The exhibition also includes a lithograph and a bronze by Povey’s wife, Donna Tolar.
“He is an extraordinary figurative painter of great power, schooled in the classical traditions of brilliantly-crafted composition, whose work is executed with a highly personal and idiosyncratic style. While he freely references his debt to the painters of the Italian Renaissance, to the monumental early works of Picasso, the drama of Caravaggio, or the complex works of Spencer, his work is nevertheless completely original and of his own invention. He is a painter whose work extends the traditions he respects, and adds to the language of painting, adds to the ‘body of knowledge’. He is one of the very few ‘easel-painters’ who can transfer from smaller scale to the vast – his huge mural “The Hall of Illusion” for the Powis Hall at the University of Wales, Bangor, is a quite astounding achievement.
There are very few painters working today who can equal Povey’s highly original compositions, which are complex and challenging, but communicate so readily with a wide audience. An honour for Edward Povey would be an appropriate reflection of a distinguished artist whose life and continuing work deserves recognition” Professor Anthony Jones CBE Dip.Ad., BA, MFA, DFA, HonAIA, FRCA, FRSA (April 2006)