{{Short description|New Zealand painter (1933–1978)}} {{for|the British neuroscientist|Ed Bullmore}}{{Use New Zealand English|date=October 2025}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2025}}{{Infobox artist | birth_date = 1933 | birth_place = Balfour, New Zealand | death_date = 15 November 1978 | alma_mater = Canterbury School of Fine Arts | notable_works = 'Astro forms' and 'Icon' series | style = Surrealism and construction | movement = }}
'''Edward''' '''"Ted" Aaron Alexander Bullmore''' (1933 – 15 November 1978) was a New Zealand artist known for his surrealistic and three-dimensional paintings one of which featured in Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film ''A Clockwork Orange''.
== Early life == Edward Bullmore, known as Ted, was born in Balfour, in New Zealand's Southland Region, to William and Ann Bullmore in 1933.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news |last=Fallow |first=Michael |date=May 13, 2023 |title=The southern man was a surrealist |url=https://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/132026874/the-southern-man-was-a-surrealist |access-date=1 October 2025 |work=Southland Times}}</ref> He attended the Balfour Public School and in 1947 continued his education at Christchurch Boys' High School.<ref>{{Cite news |date=15 May 2023 |title=Balfour Artist Finally Gets the Southland Spotlight |url=https://southlandtribune.substack.com/p/balfour-raised-artist-finally-gets |access-date=1 October 2025 |work=Southland Tribune}}</ref> After leaving school Bullmore attended the Canterbury School of Fine Arts. His contemporaries there included students who would go on to become well-known artists and important cultural figures, such as Pat Hanly, John Coley, Quentin Macfarlane, Bill Culbert, Hamish Keith,<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Ellis |first=Stephen |date=Winter 1979 |title=Ted Bullmore 1933 – 1978 |journal=Art New Zealand |issue=12}}</ref> Tony Fomison, and Trevor Moffitt.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Forman |first=Mark |title=Tony Fomison Life of the Artist |date=2025 |publisher=Auckland University Press |location=Auckland |pages=33}}</ref> Bullmore graduated with a Diploma of Fine Arts (Hons) in 1955.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Art school 125 |url=https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/artschool125/SelectiveChronology/1950_1960/index.html |access-date=1 October 2025}}</ref> While at art school he played representative rugby for Canterbury as a loose forward in 1954 and 1955, and also represented Auckland in 1956 when he moved there to take up a teacher training course.<ref>{{Cite news |date=18 November 1978 |title=Former Canterbury rugby man dead |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19781118.2.81.11?items_per_page=10&page=2&query=%22Edward+Bullmore%22&snippet=true |access-date=1 October 2025 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=15}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=18 August 1989 |title=Mooloo's faint echo at Lancaster Park |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19890818.2.115?query=%22Ted+Bullmore%22&snippet=true |access-date=1 October 2025 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=31}}</ref> In all he would play 15 games for Canterbury and eight games for Auckland, and was described by rugby writer Lindsay Knight as 'a young player of extreme promise.'<ref>{{Cite book |last=Knight |first=Lindsay |title=Shield Fever |date=1980 |publisher=Rugby Press Ltd}}</ref> In 1958, Bullmore married Jacqueline La Roche, who had also been a student at art school. In the same year he began teaching at Tauranga District High School and in 1959 moved on to Tauranga Boys' College.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Coley |first=John |date=September 2008 |title=Eyes Wide Shut |journal=New Zealand Listener}}</ref>
== Art career == After leaving art school Bullmore continued with his practice as an artist and exhibited a number of times in New Zealand. In 1959 he took part in a two person exhibition at the Willeston Gallery in Wellington<ref>{{Cite news |date=14 July 1959 |title=Former City Painter |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19590714.2.47?items_per_page=10&query=%22Edward+Bullmore%22&snippet=true |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=9}}</ref> as well as an exhibition sponsored by the Tauranga Art Society.<ref>{{Cite news |date=14 July 1959 |title=Former City Painter |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19590714.2.47 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=9}}</ref> Late in 1959 Bullmore and his wife Jacqueline La Roche traveled to Florence where he worked in the studio of the Italian painter Pietri Annigoni for six months.<ref name=":3">{{Cite news |last=Moore |first=Christopher |date=29 November 1988 |title=Edward Bullmore His Life in Art |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19881129.2.82.1?items_per_page=10&query=%22Edward+Bullmore%22&snippet=true |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=13}}</ref> By 1960 the Bullmores had settled in London alongside other art school colleagues Pat Hanly and Bill Culbert who had been there since 1957.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2000 |title=Concise History of Art in Canterbury 1850 – 2000 |url=https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/media/uploads/2015_10/ConciseHistory.pdf |access-date=1 October 2025 |website=Christchurch Art Gallery}}</ref> Bullmore painted during the day and joined Pat Hanly working at the Royal Court Theatre at night shifting scenery. He used scraps of spare canvas form the theater flats for his own paintings.<ref name=":0" /> The early sixties were marked by large scale antinuclear campaigns and activism. They inspired Bullmore’s nine-painting series ''Transition'' that explored ‘an aesthetic of nuclear paranoia’. The series explored a surrealist style, ‘influenced by the eerie dreamscapes of Giorgio de Chirico and Paul Nash’.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Nichols |first=Chelsea |title=Transition No. 8 (Creation Cycle) |url=https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/1476270?page=1&rtp=1&ros=1&asr=1&assoc=all&mb=c |access-date=1 October 2025}}</ref> Anxiety about a future with nuclear weapons is also reflected in Hanly’s work of the time. The figures painted by Bullmore in this period are often scarred as though eaten away by radioactivity;<ref name=":2" /> a typical example is ''Cuba Crisis'' painted in1963.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Cuba Crisis |url=https://www.aucklandartgallery.com/explore-art-and-ideas/artwork/7427/cuba-crisis-no-4-the-life-saver |access-date=1 October 2025 |website=Auckland Art Gallery}}</ref> His reputation as a painter grew rapidly and his work was featured in a number of important exhibitions. He was also elected as a member of the influential London Group which was one of the oldest artist-led organisations in the world. Bullmore also paintings back to New Zealand for exhibition in the Christchurch Group Show in 1962.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Group 1962 |url=https://christchurchcitylibraries.com/Heritage/Publications/Art/TheGroup/pdfs/1962.pdf |access-date=1 October 2025 |website=Christchurch City Libraries}}</ref> Supporting himself and his family through teaching he worked his way up from secondary school to a tertiary position at the Sutton and Epsom Schools of Art and Design and the Brixton School of Building.<ref name=":1" /> Initially inspired by his time with Annigoni, Bullmore’s work was figurative and surrealist, but by 1964 he was using found pieces of furniture in 3-dimensional works. The first series was ''Hikarangi'' based on the New Zealand landscape and later between 1965 and 1967 he constructed more sexually themed works he titled ''Astro Forms''. One of these was purchased by the film director Stanley Kubrick who included it in a set for ''A Clockwork Orange'' (1971). As Alex dances on the desk to ''Singing in the Rain'' you can see Bullmore’s ‘heart-shaped’ painting on the right.<ref>{{Cite web |title=A Clockwork Orange – I'm Singing in the Rain |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55XJivhjB4U |access-date=1 October 2025 |website=YouTube | date=24 January 2012 }}</ref>
== Selected exhibitions in London == 1962 ''Fourth Annual Exhibition of Young Commonwealth artists''.<ref>{{Cite news |date=17 April 1962 |title=Young N.Z. Artists In London Show |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19620417.2.197?items_per_page=10&page=3&query=%22Edward+Bullmore%22&snippet=true |access-date=1 October 2025 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=21}}</ref> Bullmore showed in two more of these bi-annual exhibitions in 1964 and 1965.<ref>{{Cite news |date=5 November 1965 |title=Seven NZ Artists |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19651105.2.99?items_per_page=10&query=%22Edward+Bullmore%22&snippet=true |access-date=1 October 2025 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=10}}</ref> Of the 1965 exhibition the critic Frank Whitford of ''Art Review'' wrote that Bullmore was, "The most exciting artist here, indeed the star of the show .... His are highly original works, touching nerves at the frontier of the subconscious…”<ref name=":3" />
1964 ''London Group exhibition'', work from ‘Hikarangi’ series. Showing with Jean Horsley and Michael Browne.<ref>{{Cite news |date=7 April 1964 |title=N.Z. Painter In London |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19640407.2.88?items_per_page=10&query=%22Edward+Bullmore%22&snippet=true |access-date=1 October 2025 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=10}}</ref>
1964 ''Group show'' Quantas Gallery Picadilly, London. The exhibition also included work by Ralph Hotere, Jean Horsley, Douglas MacDiarmid and Bill Culbert.<ref>{{Cite news |date=31 October 1964 |title=N.Z. 'Cultural Drain' Comment In London |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19641031.2.128?items_per_page=10&page=2&query=%22Edward+Bullmore%22&snippet=true |access-date=1 October 2025 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=12}}</ref>
1966 ''Structure '66'', the first open exhibition exclusively for sculpture and construction.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Tennent |first=Brenda |date=Autumn 1988 |title=Edward Bullmore (1933-1978) |journal=Art New Zealand |volume=50}}</ref>
1967 ''Two Hundred Paintings'' Royal Institute Gallery, London. Bullmore was a member of the London Group and one of the selectors of the exhibition that included two of his works.<ref name=":4">{{Cite news |date=23 May 1967 |title=With Brush And Bentwood |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19670523.2.78 |access-date=1 October 2025 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=8}}</ref>
1967 ''Edward Bullmore'' Tama Gallery. Bullmore’s first solo exhibition in the UK and the first solo show held at the gallery<ref>{{Cite news |date=24 April 1967 |title=One-Man Show By N.Z. Artist |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19670424.2.82?items_per_page=10&query=%22Edward+Bullmore%22&snippet=true |access-date=1 October 2025 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=9}}</ref> Along with shaped canvases, Bullmore showed constructions made from disassembled chairs. ‘I have got dozens of old chairs that I haven’t used yet … you can often see me getting around London with a chair on the back of my motor scooter.’<ref name=":4" /> Of one of the canvases art writer Stephen Cleland notes, ‘Bullmore was interested in treating the canvas like the body, where its surface becomes analogous to skin.’<ref>{{Cite web |last=Cleland |first=Stephen |date=23 May 2017 |title=Rethinking the Relationship Between Art and Body |url=https://thebigidea.nz/community-announcements/rethinking-the-relation-between-art-and-the-body-0 |access-date=1 October 2025 |website=The Big Idea}}</ref>
=== Enchanted Domain === In 1967 two of Bullmore’s paintings and a sculpture were selected for the exhibition ''Enchanted Domain'' at Exeter University. Bookseller John Lyle organised the exhibition as part of the Exeter Festival of Modern Arts and it was shown at the Exeter City Gallery and Exe Gallery. The exhibition set out to show that the surrealist movement remained a current concern for contemporary artists (despite the death of its champion André Breton in 1966) and is now seen as having revived surrealism in Britain.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Small |first=Claire |date=31 August 2019 |title=Exeter's role in birth of surrealist art movement celebrated in new exhibition |url=https://www.theexeterdaily.co.uk/news/entertainment-reviews/exeter%E2%80%99s-role-birth-surrealist-art-movement-celebrated-new-exhibition |access-date=1 October 2025 |work=Exeter Daily Saturday}}</ref> ''Enchanted Domain'' included work by Pablo Picasso, Yves Tanguy, Giorgio de Chirico, Andre Masson, Jone Miro, Salvador Dali and many others.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Matthews |first=J. H. |title=The enchanted domain : surrealist art at Exeter City Gallery and Exe Gallery 1967 |date=1967 |publisher=Exeter City Gallery}}</ref>
== Return to New Zealand == The Bullmore family now included three children and they returned to New Zealand in 1969.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Hunter |first=Martin |date=19 March 2012 |title=Stuff Art scandal: valuable works go missing |url=https://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/6595622/Art-scandal-valuab |access-date=1 October 2025 |work=Sunday Star Times}}</ref> Rotorua Boys’ High had offered Bullmore a teaching position which he accepted.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Campbell |first=Phil |date=10 June 2019 |title=Dedicated to Artist's Legacy |url=https://www.sunlive.co.nz/news/211348-dedicated-to-artists-legacy.html?post=211348-dedicated-to-artists-legacy.html |access-date=1 October 2025 |work=Sun Live}}</ref> Bullmore continued painting but the reputation he had developed in the UK did not follow him back to New Zealand. He mostly showed in Rotorua or nearby areas<ref name=":1" /> although he did exhibit four works from the ''Hikurangi'' series in the Christchurch Group show in 1971.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Group Show 1971 |url=https://christchurchcitylibraries.com/Heritage/Publications/Art/TheGroup/pdfs/1971.pdf |access-date=1 October 2025 |website=Christchurch City Libraries}}</ref> He also showed a couple of times at the Barry Lett Galleries and was included in the 1976 ''Drawing Invitational'' organised by the Manawatu Art Gallery. In all, during the eight years following his return to New Zealand, Bullmore had 12 solo exhibitions and was included in 23 group shows.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jackson |first=Penelope |title=Edward Bullmore: A Surrealistic Odyssey |date=2008 |publisher=Tauranga Art Gallery Toi Tauranga |location=Tauranga |pages=87–89}}</ref> Despite this active exhibiting history his painted constructions were, as art historian Michael Dunn noted, ‘too unsettling to gain much of a reputation in his home country.’<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dunn |first=Michael |title=New Zealand Sculpture: A History |date=2002 |publisher=Auckland University Press |pages=107}}</ref> Bullmore died of Paget's Disease on 15 November 1978 aged 45.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Fallow |first=Michael |date=13 October 2009 |title=The Enchanted Domain |url=https://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/culture/2832347/The-enchanted-domain |access-date=1 October 2025 |work=Stuff}}</ref>
== Recognition and legacy == Bullmore’s importance was recognised in a number of ways after his death. In 1982 he was featured in the television art series ''Kaleidoscope''.<ref>{{Cite web |date=1982 |title=Edward Bullmore |url=https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/kaleidoscope-edward-bullmore-1982 |access-date=1 October 2025}}</ref> This focus on his life and art included commentary by fellow artists and his family and brought him national attention.<ref>{{Cite news |date=18 November 1982 |title=World-class N.Z. artist virtually unknown |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19821118.2.85.1?items_per_page=10&page=2&query=%22Edward+Bullmore%22&snippet=true |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=19}}</ref> A survey exhibition with catalogue ''Edward Bullmore: one decade on'' mounted by the Rotorua Art Gallery followed in 1988.<ref name=":3" /> A more unusual acknowledgement was made in a photograph taken by Peter Peryer in 1993. ''Edward Bullmore’s launch, Lake Tarawera'' has become a very well-known image with particular attention given to the Maori motifs on the vessel.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Peter Peryer: Bullmore's Launch |url=https://collection.sarjeant.org.nz/objects/44849/edward-bullmores-launch) |access-date=1 October 2025 |website=Sarjeant Gallery}}</ref> In 2006 Jacqueline Bullmore, who was responsible for the large number of paintings, drawings and other art related material in Bullmore’s estate, gifted 287 of his art works to the Tauranga Gallery.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Bridges |first=Natalie |date=1 March 2006 |title=Widow gifts more than $1m art to gallery |url=https://www.nzherald.co.nz/bay-of-plenty-times/news/widow-gifts-more-than-1m-art-to-gallery/GGK6MZWT5HXI6O66GRLOIH5RV4/ |access-date=1 October 2025 |work=Bay of Plenty Times}}</ref> The gift spurred the gallery in 2008 to produce a survey exhibition ''Edward Bullmore: A Surrealist Odyssey'' curated by Penelope Jackson which focused on Bullmore’s surrealist art.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Edward Bullmore: A Surrealist Odyssey |url=https://www.artgallery.org.nz/edward-bullmore-a-surrealist-odyssey |access-date=1 October 2025}}</ref> The exhibition toured to a number of venues in New Zealand and was accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue. More recently in 2023 Penelope Jackson also curated ''Edward Bullmore: The London Years'' for the Tauranga Art Gallery.<ref>{{Cite news |date=Spring 2023 |title=Rack city: the Bullmore Collection exhibited at the Tauranga Art Gallery |work=Metro |pages=440}}</ref>
=== Controversy === Around six years after Jacqueline Bullmore’s gift to the Tauranga Gallery, it was revealed that many of the remaining works held by the family had been ‘sold during the 1990s and early 2000s behind Jacqueline's back.’<ref>{{Cite news |last=Hunter |first=Martin |date=19 March 2012 |title=Art scandal: valuable works go missing |url=https://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/6595622/Art-scandal-valuab |access-date=1 October 2025 |work=Stuff}}</ref> Over 100 paintings were missing as the result of ‘swaps, trades, gifting, or even selling the art at a significant undervalue’ by a family member working with a local art dealer.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Thomas |first=Rod |date=2019 |title=Recovery of Art by Vindication of Property Rights |journal=Journal of Art Crime Association for Research into Crimes Against Art}}</ref> One of these works was ''Hikurangi No. 3''<ref>{{Cite web |title=Hikurangi No. 3 |url=https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/44595?page=1&rtp=1&ros=1&asr=1&assoc=all&mb=cwas |access-date=1 October 2025}}</ref> that had been purchased by Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand for $150,000 without Jacqueline Bullmore’s knowledge, although the Bullmore family fully support its inclusion in the collection.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Wall |first=Tony |date=18 March 2012 |title=Valuable Works Go Missing Stuff |url=https://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/6595622/Art-scandal-valuable-works-go-missing |access-date=1 October 2025 |work=Sunday Star Times}}</ref>
Jacqueline Bullmore, died on 1 June 2019 aged 85.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Campbell |first=Phil |date=10 June 2019 |title=Dedicated to Artist's Legacy |url=https://sunlive.co.nz/news/211348-dedicated-to-artists-legacy.html?post=211348-dedicated-to-artists-legacy.html |work=Sunlive}}</ref>
===Collections=== Bullmore's work is in the collections of several major New Zealand art galleries including the following:
*Auckland Art Gallery<ref>[https://www.aucklandartgallery.com/explore-art-and-ideas/artwork/7427/cuba-crisis-no-4-the-life-saver Auckland Art Gallery]</ref> view work [https://www.aucklandartgallery.com/explore-art-and-ideas/artwork/7427/cuba-crisis-no-4-the-life-saver here]. *Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington<ref>[https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/44595?page=1&rtp=1&ros=1&asr=1&assoc=all&mb=c Te Papa Tongarewa]</ref> view work [https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/44595?page=1&rtp=1&ros=1&asr=1&assoc=all&mb=c here]. *Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt<ref>[https://collection.dowse.org.nz/objects/755/astroform-11 Dowse Art Museum]</ref> view work [https://collection.dowse.org.nz/objects/755/astroform-11 here]. *Eastern Southland Gallery, Gore *Tauranga Art Gallery *[https://ehive.com/objects?accountId=3317&query=ted+bullmore&facet=account_name_facet%3AInvercargill+Public+Art+Gallery Invercargill Public Art Gallery]view work [https://ehive.com/objects?accountId=3317&query=ted+bullmore&facet=account_name_facet%3AInvercargill+Public+Art+Gallery here].
== References == {{reflist}}
{{The Group NZ}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bullimore, Ted}} Category:1933 births Category:1978 deaths Category:20th-century New Zealand artists Category:20th-century New Zealand painters Category:New Zealand modern painters Category:20th-century New Zealand sculptors Category:Ilam School of Fine Arts alumni Category:People from the Southland Region Category:Canterbury rugby union players Category:Auckland rugby union players