Abstract
Gordon Crook (1921–2011) became a significant Wellington artist after his arrival in Aotearoa, New Zealand in 1972. He produced tapestries, prints and banners. In the 1980s, he turned from celebratory public works to more introverted, private imagery, particularly after acquiring a copy of Muriel Gardiner’s The Wolf-Man and Sigmund Freud. In Freud’s analysis of Sergei Pankeev (The Wolf-Man), Crook discovered a set of ideas that enabled him to explore his own infantile neurosis, the result of childhood traumas and his psycho-sexual difficulties in human relationships. The result was a major series of works (1990–91) embracing tapestries and black-and-white prints, two sets of which are in the collection of Te Papa. This paper is based upon Crook’s correspondence over the period of the development of his turn towards more introverted subject matter, as well as a close study of the relationship of Crook’s images to the text of Gardiner’s book.