Frank Dean
Frank Dean is now 90 years of age and can no longer paint. Remembered as an art teacher more than a leading New Zealand artist, Dean taught some of this country’s best. When teaching at Dunedin’s Teachers College during the 1950s, enrolled students included Jim Allen, Brian Carmody, John Drawbridge, John Bevan Ford, Ralph Hotere, Jeanne Macaskill, Para Matchitt, Stanley Palmer, Grant Tilly, Marilynn Webb and Cliff Whiting. Dean felt very strongly about the teaching and learning of art as an essential component of “experiencing” life. Dean’s desire to educate came second only to his obsession for painting. He was no “closet painter” as he took part in numerous exhibitions throughout his career, notably a retrospective in 1965 at Dunedin Public Art Gallery. “Frank Dean” not being a household name can be put down to his detestation of art dealers, coupled with a romantic notion that a great artist must be a struggling artist. Thrown into this mix also was the fact that although he liked to exhibit his work, he very rarely had any up for sale.
Dean, like many artists, feels that it is the responsibility of an artist to speak out in a public forum to highlight injustices that surround us. His paintings often, but not exclusively, depict political, social and racial imagery in a hard-hitting, unforgettable style of surrealism.
Frank Dean was born in Palmerston North in 1917. He studied art at Wellington Art School from 1932 to 1935 and after World War Two, where he was a sailor on The Achilles ferrying New Zealand troops to Hawaii, Dean went to the Elam School of Art of Fine Art in 1946. From 1947 to 1950 Dean trained as a National Art Specialist, first in Wellington and then in Dunedin. Adding to the above mentioned stint at Dunedin Teachers College, Dean was also an art adviser for Otago and an art master at Otago Girls High. In 1966-67 he was Dunedin Public Art Gallery’s first assistant director under Charlton Edgar. Late in 1967 he and his wife, Margaret, moved to Papakowhai, Porirua, where he was the first HOD in art at Porirua College, also teaching at Tawa and Aotea Colleges.
Frank Dean’s work is held in a number of public collections including The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Dunedin Public Art Gallery and The Hocken Library.
back to artist page