The Right People

In the New Plymouth home of the late Tom Kreisler and his widow Lesley, Mexican artefacts and family heirlooms rub shoulders with Tom’s diffuse, large-scale paintings.

- Katie Lockhart

Tom Kreisler was an enigmatic figure in the New Zealand arts community. Born in 1938 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he came to live in New Zealand in 1952 where he studied art at the University of Canterbury’s School of Fine Arts.

In the late 60s, he moved to New Plymouth with his wife Lesley to teach art at New Plymouth Boys’ High School, make art and raise a family. Tom’s work was considered strikingly original with its almost cartoonish style and he’s my personal favourite of the period. He died in 2002 at the age of 63.

By chance, while holidaying on Great Barrier Island, I met Tom’s widow, Lesley. Their Medlands bach is the one I’d always wanted to see inside. Modest, yet romantic, a garland of spinifex is strung along the balcony and sun-faded green paint traces the windows. It reminded me of Robert Frank and June Leaf ’s summer house in Nova Scotia that I’d seen fleetingly in a film.

I often prefer to imagine the interior of houses that I admire from the street, rather than see the reality. The interior of the Kreisler’s bach, however, was perfectly aligned with my expectations. Sparsely furnished with simple, well-proportioned useful furniture, perhaps the most beautiful Teuane Tibbo painting I’ve ever seen, a few Polynesian and Melanesian artefacts, wrought-iron bedheads, beds covered in plaid wool blankets, and collections of old straw hats for the beach. The interior is removed from the local vernacular of plywood walls and retro cane furniture, and I loved it.