Richard John Horner: 11.8.1941 – 5.12.2023
Richard Horner
Richard Horner, who died in Cambridge last month, was a widely-respected landscape artist whose work graced the walls of homes around the world.
Marion Hunt, past-president and current vice-president of the Cambridge Society of Arts, described him as an “accomplished artist whose work transported you to his eye’s view”.
“He was inspiring, encouraging … always with a twinkle in his eye. He wanted you to enjoy painting just as much as he did,” she told those gathered at St Andrew’s Church last week for his memorial service.
A determined Richard, on the left, powering through the 1965 National Road Championships in Dunedin.
Richard and his wife Elizabeth settled in Cambridge in 2012. He was best known locally for his artistic prowess and support of the arts, yet years earlier he made a name for himself in cycling circles by breaking Cycling New Zealand’s then nine-year record with an epic 25-hour, 18-minute ride from Auckland to Wellington. That was in 1981.
The man who shaved more than five hours off that record two years later was Waikato cyclist Brian Fleck. He told the St Andrew’s gathering that he met Richard in 1976 at a 70km cycling event in Auckland at which the pair snagged first and second place.
“Richard’s time in that 1981 ride was very, very good,” he said.
Richard was born in Devonport, England, and came with his family to New Zealand in 1952. Even by that early age, said his brother John, Richard had been noticed for being particularly tidy.
“There was only one misdemeanour that I recall. When he was about 10, he pinched one of dad’s cigarettes and went behind the shed to smoke it, but instead ended up setting fire to the shed.”
Art was Richard’s preferred subject at school. He later trained as a cartographer, drawing maps in pen and watercolour, honing the fine motor skills that took him into the field of drafting and further inspiring his desire to paint and draw on a personal level.
John Horner said painting became an important vehicle to recovery after Richard suffered a traumatic accident in 1987. “Painting was terrific for him then because it kept him focused.”
Landscapes of all types were Richard’s preferred genre. He was inspired throughout his life by Turner’s windswept seas and skies, said Marian, leading him to a lifelong love of painting ships and the sea. Once in Waikato, that translated to many paintings done of Raglan.
Richard and Elizabeth, pictured with railway modeller Paul Murphy at a 2019 model railway exhibition in Cambridge, were fully involved in community
Richard joined the Cambridge Society of Arts in 2013. He was president for a while in 2014 and retained his membership in the years that followed. From the 1970s onwards, he exhibited in several joint and solo exhibitions around New Zealand, including at the Art Post Gallery in Hamilton. His work has been purchased by buyers as far field as the United States, United Kingdom, Europe and Australia.
One of his commissions was of Auckland’s Glenfield War Memorial Hall, done for inclusion in Fiona Jack’s 2011 book, Living Halls.
Twenty of his paintings are on display at St Andrew’s Moxon Centre retirement complex, home to Richard and Elizabeth for the past few years.
