A.R.D Fairburn Papers

Rex Fairburn was a poet, satirist, artist, journalist and critic who is best remembered for his outspoken views on matters ranging from New Zealand art and literature to compost and drainage. He was born and lived most of his life in Auckland, the great grandson of lay missionary William Fairburn and the grandson of surveyor and novelist Edwin Fairburn. His father Arthur Fairburn was an amateur music critic and his mother Teresa Harland a talented musician. His brother Geoffrey lived in Hamilton from the 1950s until his death in 1999. This collection came into the Archive with Geoffrey’s papers in 2006. The records consist of theatre and concert programmes, art school prospectuses and exhibition catalogues, correspondence by, to and about Fairburn, drafts and clippings of Fairburn’s work as a poet and journalist, and other material.