Robin Morrison

on the North Shore of Auckland in 1944 Morrison was born in Devonport on the North Shore of Auckland on 16 June 1944. He grew up in Narrow Neck, and attended Vauxhall School. where he attended Freyberg High School and Massey University. Morrison's father worked a home-portrait photographer for Christopher Bede Studios, however Morrison never took great interest in his works. == Career ==

Origins and the New Zealand Listener In 1965, Morrison moved to London, inspired by a "sense of urgency and claustrophobia" caused by 1960s counterculture. and created portrait shots for the Listener for people including Dame Whina Cooper, John A. Lee and Frank Sargeson. and had no strict plan of what he wanted to photograph. In 1981, his works were published as The South Island of New Zealand: From the Road. Shots from From the Road were exhibited at the Auckland Art Gallery from June to August 1981, and a television documentary, From the Road - Robin Morrison: Photo Journalist (1981), profiled Morrison and his works. Morrison photographed the Paua House in Bluff as a part of the book. The house's inclusion in From the Road helped to establish the house as a tourist attraction, and made the owners Fred and Myrtle Flutey local celebrities. Later works owned by Morrison In 1981, Morrison photographed the protests against the Springbok Tour. He died the following year on 12 March 1993. ==Legacy==

In 1993, a television documentary, Sense of Place: Robin Morrison, Photographer, was released, featuring footage of Morrison shortly before his death. Sense of Place won Best Documentary at the 1994 Film & TV Awards, and a certificate of merit at the San Francisco International Film Festival. The Auckland War Memorial Museum has held three exhibitions of Morrison's works. The first was Robin Morrison: Photographer, held from February to April 1997, after which the exhibition travelled across the country to Christchurch, Dunedin, Timaru, Wellington and Rotorua. The exhibition was paired the with the release of a book, The Robin Morrison Collection. The second exhibition, ''A Decade of Days – Auckland Through Robin Morrison's Eyes'' (2013–2014), focused on Morrison's urban photography of Auckland in the 1970s and 1980s, and elements of the exhibition were installed at Manukau Institute of Technology and Ōtara Town Centre. Robin Morrison: Road Trip, opened in March 2023, and was paired with a re-release of The South Island of New Zealand: From the Road. In 2009, the Auckland City Council reissued Morrison's calendar of Ponsonby shot in 1978, as a part of the Auckland Heritage Festival. == Personal life ==

Morrison met his wife Dinah Bradley while attending Otago University. The pair moved to London, where they wed in 1966. Robin and Dinah returned to New Zealand after Dinah became pregnant, having their first son Jake in 1970, followed by Keir in 1972. and bought a family home in Ponsonby in the same year. ==Selected books==

• Images of a House (1978) • The South Island of New Zealand: From the Road (1981) • ''Reader's Digest Book of Historic Australian Towns'' (1982) • A Sense of Place (1984) • Wild Australia Reader's Digest (1984) • The Wines and Vineyards of New Zealand (1984) text Michael Cooper • The Historic Country Hotels of England (1985) text Wendy Arnold • The Historic Hotels of London (1986) text Wendy Arnold • The Irish Village (1986) with Christopher Fitz-Simon • Homeplaces (1986) with Keri Hulme • The English Country Town (1987) text Anthony Quiney • The Historic Hotels of France (1988) text Wendy Arnold • Auckland: City & Sea (1989) • The Bayswater Brasserie Book of Food (1989) • The Historic Hotels of Ireland (1989) text by Wendy Arnold • A Land Apart: The Chatham Islands of New Zealand (1990) with Michael King • The Historic Hotels of Paris (1990) text Wendy Arnold • The Historic Hotels of Spain (1991) text Wendy Arnold • New Zealand Architecture From Polynesian Beginnings to 1990 (1991) text Peter Shaw • At Home and Abroad (1991) • Sydney in Black and White (1992) text Glenn A Baker • Coromandel (1993) with Michael King • A Journey (1994) ==References==