author
W. (Wilhelm) Dittmer
1866–1909
A German-born painter who spent part of his career in New Zealand, he is remembered for portraits of Māori subjects and for the illustrated 1907 book Te Tohunga. His short life left behind a small but striking body of work tied to the art history of Aotearoa.
1 Audiobook
Te Tohunga: The ancient legends and traditions of the Maoris
by W. (Wilhelm) Dittmer
About the author
Born in Hamburg in 1866, Wilhelm Dittmer was a German artist whose work later became closely associated with New Zealand collections. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa records his birth in Hamburg and notes that he died there on 19 June 1909.
Dittmer is best known for portraits and figure studies of Māori subjects made in the early 1900s. Te Papa lists a number of these works in its collection, and Christchurch Art Gallery places him among artists working in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century tradition of Māori portraiture.
He is also linked with Te Tohunga: The Ancient Legends and Traditions of the Maoris from 1907, a book preserved by the National Library of New Zealand and other digital archives. Although not as widely known as some of his contemporaries, his paintings and illustrated work still appear in major New Zealand institutions, which suggests a lasting place in the visual record of that period.