The Labours of Herakles by Marian Maguire

This is a second-hand copy of the book The Labours of Herakles by Marian Maguire. 

Condition; This is a used book in good condition. The front card cover has some creasing on the lower right-hand corner.

Publisher: PaperGraphica
Year: 2008
ISBN: 9780473133818
Format: Softback
Pages: 96
Condition: Used (Good)

Having arrived via the Endeavour during Maguire's series, ‘The Odyssey of Captain Cook', the ancient Greeks resolve to settle the New Land. In this collection of twelve lithographs and eight etchings, the archetypal hero is cast as a New Zealand colonist.
His objective: to claim and tame the land. But the process is unsettling.

The lithographs in The Labours of Herakles exhibition are an elegant and often humorous union of the ancient and the colonial: of Herakles wrestling not a minotaur or a lion but a taniwha; of the Amazons as suffragettes; of Athena scolding him for his lack of progress; of Herakles trying to construct a chariot from No. 8 wire.

In ‘The Labours of Herakles' Maguire casts him as New Zealand pioneer but unlike the hero of classical mythology Maguire's Herakles is not always successful. Despite his considerable physical ability, the hugeness of the task ahead at times dismays him. He makes mistakes, he is set upon by doubt. The Arcadia of his dream is within no easy reach and while, for the most part, he can reflect upon his labours with pride, his satisfaction is tinged with discomfort.'

Marian Maguire is a New Zealand artist best known for her lithographs and etchings which combine ancient Greek vase painting with New Zealand colonial history. Her Goddesses series departed from the colonial theme. The Enlightenment Project followed. First exhibited in 2022 this major series of digital prints explores Western history. Her print series have been exhibited widely throughout New Zealand and in the UK, Germany, Belgium and Australia. Alongside historical and figurative imagery, Maguire has produced many exhibitions of abstract geometric paintings or invented plant drawings in which her interest in patterns, and the disruption of patterns, becomes evident.