Lindaver Grove

Lindaver Grove was named after the Czech born artist Gottfried Lindauer.

Lindauer was born in 1839, son of a gardener. After discovering he had artistic talents he trained in Vienna. He immigrated to New Zealand in 1874, arriving in Wellington and settling in Nelson.

Lindauer was a prolific painter of many subjects, including the local pioneers, scenic vistas and copies of the Old Masters, but it was his portraits of Māori people and life that made him famous. In Nelson a businessman, Henry Partridge became his patron and commissioned many works over a thirty year period. Partridge saw a need for a pictorial record of the Māori way of life. Lindauer painted from photographs so was quite removed from his subject matter and many art historians now dispute the value of the paintings as an ethnological and historical account of the Māori.

Naturalised in 1885, Lindauer became closely associated with the photographer Samuel Carnell, lawyer and ornithologist Walter Buller and later the historian James Cowan. Lindauer continued to paint until his eyesight prevented him. He died in Woodville in 1926.

But you may now ask why is the street named Lindaver, not Lindauer? There was a spelling mistake at the Council...

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.