TOLE, Charles, 1903-1988
Decoration 3 (Painting)
Two Auckland brothers, John and Charles Tole,
are the northern equivalent of Rita Angus.
Neither of them had any formal art school
training although they both associated with
the Elam painter John Weeks (1886-1975). The
Tole brothers lived together at 12 Seaview
Road in Remuera and developed their own
credo in art which they revealed to University
of Auckland’s Kurt von Meier in 1964: “We
have always been intensely interested in
modern developments in style and technique,
yet we think these elements should not be
arbitrarily or consciously striven for but should
emerge and flow freely from the subject
matter and from the artist’s creative intuition
towards the expression and communication of
his message.”