Buck Nin

Buck Loy Nin (1942–1996) was a New Zealand artist and advocate influential in the development of contemporary Māori art and education in New Zealand. His landscape paintings have been included in survey exhibitions of contemporary Māori art including Te Waka Toi: Contemporary Maori Art that toured the United States in 1992 and Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art curated by Nigel Borrell and opened in 2020. He was also instrumental in the establishment of Te Wānanga o Aotearoa as a tertiary institution. Selwyn Muru called him 'Buck Nin the Mythmaker'. .

Early years Nin was born on the 5 August 1942 in Northland, New Zealand. His father, Choung Nin, was from Guangzhou (Canton), China and his mother, Parehikanga Tatana, was from Poroutawhao in the Horowhenua. Through his mother, Nin affiliates to the Māori iwi (tribes) of Ngāti Huia, Ngāti Raukawa and Ngāti Toa. Nin was the oldest of four, with younger siblings Marie, Lynette (Dolly), and Muriel (adopted into the family as a young girl). The Nins tended to a large market garden on Mangakahia Road.

Nin was sick as a child. At age 8 he would complain of feeling tired often to his mother, however when taken to the Doctor's clinic, they'd dismiss the family's concerns and labelled him as a "lazy, Māori boy". His mother soon had enough and took him straight to the hospital, where they found he had rheumatic fever. From this time on he would be in and out of hospital due his poor health. It was during this time that he found a passion for art and learning, passing the time by drawing in his hospital bed and doing his studies.

Nin attended Northland College and was Dux in 1960. As a teenager his art teacher Selwyn Wilson encouraged him to study art after school. Selwyn Wilson was part of the Gordon Tovey New Zealand Department of Education programme of the 1950s to integrate customary Māori arts, craft and song into the curriculum. They were shifting the language 'modern' to 'contemporary' for Māori art. In 1976 Nin was part of the South Pacific Festival of the Arts in Rotorua. Nin initiated an exhibition called Contemporary Māori Art at Waikato Art Museum also in 1976.

Career In 1966 Nin along with Baden Pere initiated one of the earliest exhibitions of contemporary Māori art at the Canterbury Museum called New Zealand Māori Culture and the Contemporary Scene. There had also been an exhibition prior in 1966 at a festival of Māori arts held in Hamilton mounted by Paratene Matchitt and Cliff Whiting. These exhibitions were the foundational in the development of contemporary Māori art and included many artists had a lasting contribution to arts in New Zealand including John Bevan Ford, Pauline Yearbury, Cath Brown and Sandy Adsett. It had restoration work under-taken between 1967 and 1979. Cliff Whiting also worked on this restoration. Nin made an artwork about his involvement in the restoration in painting called Rongopai Experience (1979).

Nin passing on his teachings and one of his students was Kura Te Waru Rewiri. This Land Is Ours (circa 1978) is the painting held by the Auckland Art Gallery. It is about the Māori land march led by Dame Whina Cooper in 1975. In the painting is group of people marching surrounded by stylised landform. The central figure probably represents Sir Kīngi Matutaera Īhaka. The title reflects the famous slogan of the march: ‘Not one more acre of Māori land’. Kohia ko Taikaka Anake, National Art Gallery, Wellington (1990) Forever Buck Nin, retrospective touring exhibition curated by Pataka the Porirua museum of art and history. He was 54 years old at the time of his death.

A 3-day tangihanga was held by his whānau in Temple View, Hamilton. Many of his relatives, friends and prominent leaders and orators from many tribes, including representatives of the Māori Queen Dame Te Arikinui Te Atairangi-Kaahu, attended the tangihanga. He was buried at Hamilton Park Cemetery in Newstead, Hamilton, where his mother was also buried.

In 2016, his wife, Carolyn McLanachan, died after a long battle with cancer. She was buried next to him.

They are survived by their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.