Vivid: the Paul Hartigan Story By Don Abbott.

Vivid: the Paul Hartigan Story By Don Abbott.

Publisher: RF Books, 2015. Near new hardback with jacket, no inscriptions.

Vivid is a rare, career-spanning survey of New Zealand artist Paul Hartigan. Hartigan is the painter of the original Phantom, an icon in New Zealand art. He is also the creative mind behind some of New Zealand's best-known and loved public sculptures: the neon works Colony (Auckland), Whipping the Wind (Wellington) and Nebula Orion (Christchurch). Hartigan was often in the right place at the right time: as a schoolboy he was the protege of the progressive team that set up New Plymouth's Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in 1970; in the late '70s he was half of the creative duo at Snake Studios; and in the mid-1980s he was the artistic talent behind the company Gone On Neon, which transformed Auckland's nightscape. The book is a unique mix of biography and art history, generously illustrated throughout, and will appeal to buyers of art books as well as those interested in New Zealand's visual and popular culture. 333 pages with colour plates.