The Angel of the Annunciation by Colin McCahon - Full Size

Fine Art Print

Image size in millimetres: 530 x 640

Simply stunning giclee print that is a full-sized replica of the original painting. Printed on Hahnemuhle German etching paper that is 310gsm, 100% cellulose and acid free archival paper to last a lifetime.

First exhibited in The Group’s 1947 exhibition, Colin McCahon’s painting of the Angel of the Annunciation shows Mary receiving the news of her miraculous pregnancy. Nelson’s ochre hills rise up in the background, while a building McCahon later identified as the Tāhunanui golfcourse clubhouse is shown in the middle distance. By giving local, vernacular expression to the mysteries of the Bible, McCahon was consciously taking his cues from the art of the early Renaissance; if such events could be depicted as reality in Florence or Siena, so too could they belong to contemporary New Zealand. McCahon’s use of words had similar origins, in the painted scrolls and illuminated script of earlier religious art. This blend of disparate sources, an admixture of high art and popular culture, modernity and tradition, the local and the universal, signals the formation of the extraordinary vision that would propel McCahon’s work throughout his career. Poet James K Baxter wrote about the Angel of the Annunciation enthusiastically, as did the historian JC Beaglehole. Even reviewers who found McCahon’s paintings challenging were prepared to recognise the sincerity that underpinned them. One of the challenges these paintings offered was their representation of biblical stories within a recognisably New Zealand context.