A.H. O’Keefe

Alfred Henry O'Keefe (1858-1941) received art training as a young man, though he worked at first with his father in the hotel trade. After studying in Paris (where he was a fellow student of Goldie's) he returned to New Zealand and alongside his hotel work in the Otago area took private painting pupils. His strengths were in portraiture and flower pieces, and his paintings were frequently exhibited during his lifetime. O’Keefe’s powerful painting of a soldier’s father receiving a telegram from the Defence minister was reproduced as a print by the Capper Press.