Hamish Keith

Hamish Henry Cordy Keith CNZM OBE (born 15 August 1936) is a New Zealand writer, art curator, arts consultant and social commentator.

Keith has been writing about and working with the arts in New Zealand for almost half a century. He has published a number of books on cultural and social history and cooking as well as the arts. He has contributed reviews and comment on the arts and urban and social issues for numerous magazines and newspapers since writing a weekly column of art news and reviews for the Auckland Star from 1962 to 1975. With Gordon H. Brown he wrote the first history of New Zealand art, An Introduction to New Zealand Painting, published by William Collins in 1969. Keith worked at the Auckland Art Gallery from 1958 to 1970, as Student Assistant (1958–61), Assistant Keeper (1961–64), and Keeper of the Gallery (1965–70), before working as a freelance journalist, writer and art consultant.

Keith has been, at times, a controversial figure in the arts. In the 1980s his art history sustained repeated attacks by art historians such as Francis Pound, who criticised An Introduction to New Zealand Painting for its reliance on the 'harsh clarity of New Zealand light' as an explanation for why New Zealand painting followed particular styles. In the early 1990s Keith became embroiled in a public dispute about his role in the National Art Gallery of New Zealand's controversial purchase of two paintings by Charles Goldie. Willing to stand up publicly for his opinions, Keith has played a significant role in the artistic life of New Zealand since the late 1950s.

Keith has been a consistent critic of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, referring to it as a "theme park", the "cultural equivalent to a fast-food outlet" and "not even a de facto national gallery" but seems to have moderated his opinion more recently when making a case for exhibition space on the Auckland waterfront.

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