New Zealand artist
Born in Raetihi 1940
Lives and works in Christchurch

Philip Trusttum is a major New Zealand painter who works mainly on a large scale. He divides his time between an elegant wooden two-storied house in central Christchurch near the Avon River and Hagley Park, and his rural retreat inland from Waimate in South Canterbury. Since 1986 Trusttum has been painting up to 12 hours a day in a tin shed there. To the east he looks out to the Pacific Ocean. To the west the distinctive profile of the Hunter Hills is an ever-changing landscape with marked seasonal differences.

He usually paints on the floor, and sometimes has to shoo away a one-eyed rooster who inspects progress in a rather cavalier fashion. A one-eyed corgi keeps him company and two quarters horses call in for a curious look during the day.

Philip Trusttum graduated with a Diploma in Fine Arts from the University of Canterbury School of Art in 1964. In 1967 he travelled on a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council scholarship and since then has travelled and worked in Europe and North America. He was part of ANZART at the Edinburgh Arts Festival in 1984 ? the same year he exhibited on New York?s 57th street at the Jill Kornblee Gallery. He has subsequently shown work in Sydney, New York, Melbourne, Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin and Christchurch. In 1998 he was the only New Zealand artist reviewed in the New York Times. In 2000 he won three major art awards including the American Pollock Krasner Art Award.

Philip Trusttum is represented in all major public and private collections within New Zealand, and the National Victoria Gallery in Melbourne, Australia.