The Story of the Artist

Draughtsman Marcus King received a call-up letter from the New Zealand Expeditionary Force recruiting director dated 24 August 1917, and went on to train at the Featherston Military Training Camp before embarking for Sling Camp in England.

Few of his comrades could have imagined that upon being repatriated after the war he would go on to paint New Zealand's best-known Treaty painting.

Created in 1938, the painting – now held in the Alexander Turnbull Library – has come to represent popular perceptions of how the Treaty signing took place. It's a painting many New Zealanders recognise, yet few have seen in the flesh. Far fewer, even among art lovers, could name the artist: Marcus King.

Across his impressive career, King achieved far more than his paintings of Māori culture. Other large-scale murals promoted New Zealand as an alluring tourism utopia and productive agricultural paradise. He also excelled in Impressionism and became New Zealand's best travel poster designer for which he is now best known.

King, was also a founding vice-president of the National Association of Art in 1924, which sought to stimulate New Zealanders' interest in art in its widest sense; a progressive perspective at the time.

King's span of exposure – across decades, artistic styles and continents – likely mark him as New Zealand's most viewed artist, promoting the country to the world with art that also found its way into New Zealand homes and continues to do so today.