Des Helmore

Illustration

From 1967 to 1969 Helmore worked as a geographical illustrator at University College London where he learnt the technical aspects of creating maps and illustrations for publication. Upon returning to New Zealand in 1970 he was employed as an entomological illustrator at Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, working alongside the painter Tony Fomison. From 1971 to 1975 he worked as a graphic artist and graphic designer for NZBC Television and TV1 News in Christchurch, creating lettering, illustrations, and title sequences, but was unhappy with the daily deadlines.

In June 1975 Helmore moved to Auckland and worked as an entomological illustrator for the Systematics Section of Entomology Division, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, until 1992, then for Invertebrate Systematics at Landcare Research from 1992 to 2006. Over these years he created over 1000 insect illustrations for scientific publications, particularly the Fauna of New Zealand series. The illustrations were created using a stereomicroscope with a camera lucida, and were drawn two to three times larger than final print size on illustration board with technical pens (or sometimes on scraperboard). Each took three or four days to complete.

His drawings have been described as "magnificent" and "exquisitely executed" by entomologists. The scientist Sir Charles Fleming wrote, "Des Helmore's drawings supply the need for pictures of entire insects felt by many New Zealand amateurs and interdisciplinary students, to an artistic standard few can hope to emulate." The entomologist Anthony Harris said, "Desmond Helmore's superb illustrations rank with the very best in the field – such as those of Arthur Smith, A. J. E. Terzi, and T. Nagatani."

Helmoreus, a genus of weevils, is named in his honour, "in recognition of his contribution to New Zealand entomology as a scientific illustrator". In 2014 a species of beetle, Sagola helmorei, was also named in his honour.

Art

Since leaving art school Helmore has continued painting. His work has been described by Dick Frizzell as having a "strangely dense atmosphere" and critic T.J. McNamara has referred to its "lonely vertical shapes" and "dim and strange" light. After being influenced by constructivism and cubism in the 1960s, he began painting depictions of rural landscapes after about 1985. Since 2000 his work has focussed on depictions of urban environments. His first solo show was in 1964 at the Hawke’s Bay Art Gallery, Napier. In 1965 he received a Merit Award for the Manawatu Contemporary Art Competition, which was followed in 1966 by a solo exhibition at the Manawatu Art Gallery (now Te Manawa) in Palmerston North. While living in London he had a solo show at the B. H. Corner Gallery in 1968, and in 1972 he was a finalist in the Benson & Hedges Art Awards. Helmore has exhibited since 1990 in solo and group shows at the Auckland galleries Lopdell House, Claybrook, Anna Bibby, Jane Sanders Art, and nkb Gallery. He has also exhibited at Ramp Gallery in Hamilton, the Hastings City Art Gallery, and, in 2017, at Spa_ce Gallery, Napier.

Reviewing his 2011 solo exhibition at Jane Sanders Art, for The New Zealand Herald, T.J. McNamara said:

He is an artist who cultivates enigma. He takes ordinary places, landscapes and buildings and combines them into paintings that are truly strange yet curiously familiar... Helmore is an old-fashioned painter. His draughtsmanship is impeccable as witnessed by his accurate scientific illustrations but there is no virtuoso flourish of drawing in his paintings: his forms are simple and clear. Rather his virtuosity is shown in his handling of paint. Skies and surfaces are deftly brushed in and the handling works in with his individual palette of dark, shadowy colour to give tension and life to the work. The paintings in this exhibition have an extra energetic factor. Forms shatter into the sky and bits and pieces scatter about. Sometimes this makes the structure too open but generally the works are held together by strong compositions of angles, checks and balances... These are fine paintings, carefully made, evoking wastelands and familiar territories. They evoke emotions but with no subtext of social comment.

His work is in a number of collections, including those of Christchurch Art Gallery, the University of Canterbury, the Hocken Library, the Canterbury Society of Arts, and Hawke's Bay Art Gallery.