John Douglas McLean

John Douglas McLean (14 October 1944 – 27 August 2023) was a figurative New Zealand painter, stone sculptor, wood carver, author, and environmentalist who lived and worked in Urenui, North Taranaki. By the end of his life, McLean was a key figure in the Taranaki art scene who was known for his richly allegorical style. McLean exhibited in New Zealand, Japan, New York and Australia. His work is held in private and public collections.

Personal life

John McLean was born in Tauranga. Although John's interest was art, not teaching, his parents wanted him to get a “real job”. His father was a carpet layer and his mother also worked.

“They were pretty poor. It was an era where they had come through a world war and depression. A lot of children whose parents were tradespeople were given opportunities they hadn’t and my parents didn’t understand art – it wasn’t part of their life at all.” John McLean.

At his parent's insistence, he trained as a teacher and taught in several schools between 1963 and 1970. He left full-time work to become an artist in 1976.

In the 1960s he was conscripted into the New Zealand Army. He refused service in the Vietnam War, and was granted conscientious objector status.

"He refused to use religious reasons to avoid going to war; he just flatly refused to go. I’ve still got his certificate as a conscientious objector”, said Chris McLean, after his death in 2023.

In 1985 John and his partner Chris bought a 16 hectare farmlet at Pukearuhe in North Taranaki, overlooking the sea, and tried to live as self-sufficiently as possible. [1] The couple and their neighbour, the sculptor Howard Tuffery, replanted the riverbanks and wetlands, and these areas are now under QEII covenant.

The couple have three children: Taranaki artist Kirsty McLean; Juliet, a singer and musician; and Gregor.

McLean spent years fighting a controversial North Taranaki composting business as chair of the North Taranaki Awa Protection Society.

John McLean died suddenly in his studio in August 2023.

Career

Between 1976 and 1986, John worked in a series of part-time jobs while painting, before becoming a full time drawing and painting tutor at Taranaki Polytechnic (now known as the Western Institute of Technology). After a break from 1993 to 1997, he briefly returned to part-time teaching at the institute.

At the beginning of his painting career, McLean was mentored by the Taranaki artist Michael Smither for years from the age of 30.

"It was Smither who launched McLean as a super-realist, which he remained for twenty years." Rhonda Bartle.

McLean became chairman of the Te Kupenga Stone Sculpture Society in 2000. The society hosts biennial stone sculpture symposia on the New Plymouth foreshore. McLean was an experienced sculptor, habitually working in Taranaki andesite. He worked on sculptures for film, including The Last Samurai, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, and Prince Caspian.

In 2012, McLean built and opened an art gallery next to his house in Mimi, to exhibit his own work, and that of his family (his daughter Kirsty and his partner Chris are artists).

In 2015, he published a 'contemporary fairytale', an illustrated book based on his exhibition The Farmer's Wife and The Farmer at Puke Ariki, New Plymouth in 2010.

After 20 years as a 'super-realist', McLean became interested in Jungian ideas about the unconscious, and switched to a figurative 'narrative style'. "I like to think that the paintings which result from this can function as visual parable or allegory."