New Zealand-born artist, Marian Maguire, creates lithographic series that combine the colonial history of New Zealand with imagery from Greek vase painting. She brings together the rich print and photographic iconography of Europe’s encounter with New Zealand with the classical imagery of Ancient Greece to comment on the timeless and yet culturally nuanced nature of empire and conflict.

The addition of black vase iconography serves to emphasise the loaded history that Europeans brought with them to the Pacific to meet an equally ancient Maori culture. The weaving of mythic classical heroes like Odysseus and Heracles into narratives of European exploration highlights the changing nature of received histories. Just as classical myths changed through oral traditions, perceptions of the Pacific changed in Europe as different accounts and images were brought back.

In her series The Odyssey of Captain Cook, Maguire combines the story of British explorer Captain James Cook with Homer’s mythic tale of Odysseus. Bookended by classical urns that show Cook’s arrival and death, a series of ten prints show Cook’s encounters in New Zealand. Each is either observed or participated in by Greek black-vase figures. Maguire quotes directly from images produced on and after Cook’s voyages, many of which are in the NMM collections.

This second lithograph in the series presents one of Maguire's most powerful compositions, combining figures in profile. Here the Maori chief Natai to left faces a Greek black-vase figure to right. The design of Natai's tattoos echo the inscribed decoration of the warrior's helmet. A face-off occurs between two ancient cultures questioning the attributes and rights of the other. Natai is taken from an engraving by Maurin after a drawing by de Sainson published in the account of the comte de Lapérouse's voyage to the Pacific 'Voyage de la Corvette Astrolabe éxécuté pendant les années 1826-1829'. His face recurs in Maguire's printed series, both here and in 'The Labours of Herakles'.