In 1968, Claude Megson Devised A House Of Angles, Drama And Intrigue For The Artist Roy Good In Oratia

This year Roy Good celebrates 50 years as a practising artist and designer.

- Giles Reid

Retrospective exhibitions open in December at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery in Auckland, and in 2019 at CoCA, Christchurch. At the latter, Parallel Universe by art historian Edward Hanfling will be launched – a book covering 50 years of Good’s twin careers in art and design. Also celebrating its 50th anniversary is the Claude Megson-designed house that Roy and his wife Sue built in Oratia, west Auckland.

The ‘Good House’ is a key work in Megson’s oeuvre. Roy and Sue Good were a young couple when they commissioned Megson, himself only just into his 30s. “Sue’s parents owned the section and I fell in love with the location,” says Roy. They gave the architect a free hand – “a house for an artist and his future family – apart from that it was very much a blank sheet. There were many meetings and sketches before we could view plans that promised an exciting result. I think it was the sculptural appearance of the elevations that I liked and the general avant-garde look of it.”

Roy had attended Ilam Art School in Christchurch and relocated to Auckland in the mid-60s. He soon became the friend and colleague of several local artists, including Milan Mrkusich, forming a tightknit group of fellow abstractionists. Roy was one of a number of Megson’s clients who moved in this artistic community.

In 1968, Megson had just completed three townhouses in Hapua Street, Remuera, for Milan and his wife Florence. They were set just below their own house, which Mrkusich designed in 1951-52 while part of Brenner Associates. Later, in 1974, Megson created two townhouses for Gavin Rees on the same street. Rees bought Roy’s work and had a pioneering interior design shop importing modern furniture (as had Brenners before him).