New Zealand-born artist, Marian Maguire, creates lithographic series that combine the colonial history of New Zealand with imagery from Greek vase painting. She brings together the rich print and photographic iconography of Europe’s encounter with New Zealand with the classical imagery of Ancient Greece to comment on the timeless and yet culturally nuanced nature of empire and conflict.

The addition of black vase iconography serves to emphasise the loaded history that Europeans brought with them to the Pacific to meet an equally ancient Maori culture. The weaving of mythic classical heroes like Odysseus and Heracles into narratives of European exploration highlights the changing nature of received histories. Just as classical myths changed through oral traditions, perceptions of the Pacific changed in Europe as different accounts and images were brought back.

In her series The Odyssey of Captain Cook, Maguire combines the story of British explorer Captain James Cook with Homer’s mythic tale of Odysseus. Bookended by classical urns that show Cook’s arrival and death, a series of ten prints show Cook’s encounters in New Zealand. Each is either observed or participated in by Greek black-vase figures. Maguire quotes directly from images produced on and after Cook’s voyages, many of which are in the NMM collections.

This first lithograph in the series acts as an introduction. The classical urn is clearly based on the famous Francois Vase, now in the Museo Archeologico in Florence. Maguire's version is decorated with ‘scenes from the Odyssey of Captain Cook’. Figures and animals in Greek black-vase style show encounters between Maori, Europeans and Greek figures. Most are taken from 18th-century sources.

In the topmost frieze, the British led by Cook meet a group of Maori led by a warrior engraved after a drawing by Sydney Parkinson. Below, British sailors use various navigational instruments to survey the land. In the third British and Ancient Greek black-vase figures are combined with Tupaia's drawings from Cook's first voyage and a Maori 'atua' (spirit). Below, the scene of Cook's death foresees the final print in the series, while two griffins take on another Maori 'atua' (spirit). The base of the vase show pigs, which were brought to New Zealand by the British and became known as 'Captain Cookers'. The print's title is engraved on the top of the simple Ionic column which supports the vase.