Art critics consider “The Judgement Series” to be the most significant artwork ever executed by New Zealander Pauline Thompson. It is presented in 13 panels (separate paintings which together tell the story) and traces back the dreadful events involving some Russian officers in World War II, this story being reincarnated in the play written by Barry Collins and called “Judgment”.
     Thompson was born in Auckland, New Zealand in 1942 and studied at the Auckland Elam School of Fine Art during 1963-64. Her first exhibition was held in 1965 at New Vision Gallery in Auckland.
     Thompson is a well-known and regarded international artist and her major works are now in private and corporate collections in Europe, USA, Australia and New Zealand. She has achieved numerous awards and accolades throughout her career, such as the QEII Visual Arts Grant in 1984 and 1989, the QEII Arts Council Fellowship in 1991-1992, the “Artist in Focus” at the Auckland Art Gallery in 1987 and was nominated to the Wallace Award in 1997. Pauline Thompson was one of the only female painters to be included in the significant book “An Introduction to New Zealand Painting 1839-1967” by Hamish Keith and Gordon Brown.
     Pauline can trace her ancestry back to the Bounty Mutineers and it was not surprising that Tahitian women would become one of the major subjects of her Pacific Stories paintings. One such painting is her “Tuki and Huru Suite” which is about two Maori men who were kidnapped and sent to Norfolk Island to teach sentenced settlers how to weave flax into cloth.
     Thompson’s art style often has a mystery, a poetic harmony and romanticism, using different mediums such as watercolours and oil on canvas. Just as a writer tells a story with the magic power of words, an artist can excite the imagination with colour and contrasts. It is said that a picture paints a thousand words. There is no doubt that Pauline Thompson’s gift is to paint poetry and prose with the brush, as she creates colour and shadow, sharp and soft images that encourage past motives and actions to stir the deep feelings hidden within the hearts and minds of all of us.
     Her 13 paintings forming the “Judgement” series portray a horrific true story of World War II, where 7 Russian officers were captured by Nazi soldiers, locked and left alone in a monastery cellar in Poland for 60 days with no food or water. Faced with death by starvation the 7 Russian officers determined by lot who would be the first to be eaten by the others. Not all agreed to participate in this real life charade. One by one those who survived did so by killing and eating each other. The questions raised in this story are eternal. It shatters familiar concepts and easy categories to smithereens. Murder, compassion, sacrifice, courage, truth, morality and humanity acquire new meanings. The powerful story brims with irony: officers starve at the very place where monks observed ritual fasts for spiritual enlightenment. The eventual sole survivor Vukhov is then accused of murder, while humanities legal ‘systems’ sanctioned mass murders take place in “the theatre of war”, such a war being the direct cause of Vukhov’s incarceration and subsequent “crime”.
     Thompson’s imaginative ideas in her 13 paintings describe the events. Even though the actions depicted are dark and hideous; the paintings are powerful and moving and give one a lot to think about when looking back at some of the unjust principles forming the history of humanity. So impressed was she by the human elements in this story, Thompson created two original variants of this series. One variant of her “Judgement Series” was on large unstretched canvases and was purchased by the Auckland Art Gallery and is still retained there. The other original was sold to a private collector. It is this latter variant which is photographed within this issue of Neva News and is now for public sale. The price is not insubstantial, being $US65,000 (plus freight and insurance) for the 13 painting series – but these paintings are unique and have a link direct to the soul of Russia. Anyone interested in buying these paintings should contact Neva News through: david@nevanews.com.