page 79

DITTMER, Wilhelm (known as Willy) 1866–1909

A German who was in New Zealand by 1899, with a portrait reproduced in New Zealand Graphic in December that year, and listed as an Auckland artist 1900 Wise's. Exhibited with ASA 1900, with NZ Academy of Fine Arts Wtn 1902–04, but he was said to have lived mainly in Taupo and Wanganui. A double-page spread of drawings illustrating life on the upper reaches of the Wanganui River was featured in an April 1903 number of the New Zealand Graphic. Held a one man show at McGregor Wright's art shop, Wellington, in July 1904. Probably returned to Germany 1904 and in 1907 published Te Tohunga, a collection of Maori legends which he had compiled and illustrated. He had married in Hamburg, and engaged in a series of one hundred views of the port, work which had been commissioned for the Government or local authorities. This was incomplete when he died. A collection of pencil drawings and chromolithographs after his work is in Turnbull. A chromolithograph 1905, “The Keeper of Pahikaure” is in Hocken, the original being in the Christchurch Press office.