Artist beats odds with long-awaited book of his work

Artist and teacher Randall Froude was in his 70s when he responded to a questionnaire in a women’s magazine and discovered he was dyslexic.

‘‘I answered the 20 questions, and sure enough,’’ said Froude, 91, in his Richmond studio and home. ‘‘I spent 75 years not knowing, so it was a bit of a rough ride.’’

At school, he was considered ‘‘stupid and all the rest, because they didn’t know’’.

‘‘When they tell you that for 75 years, you believe it.’’

He no longer thinks that way, and he considers his dyslexia to be a ‘‘great gift’’.

Froude is terminally ill, and has self-published a book, Behind the Easel, containing a selection of his artworks with short explanations he wrote himself.

Having dyslexia was not a failing – it helped to make a person different and original, Froude said.

‘‘Some of the world’s greatest movers are dyslexic,’’ he said, referring to the likes of physicist Albert Einstein, Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson, and Wētā Workshop co-owner Sir Richard Taylor.

For Froude, that difference has shown up in his art, helping him to see clearly what he could create, including large impressionist landscapes.

Pointing to one of his paintings

‘‘Being dyslexic, the thought of doing a book was frightening, so I continually put it on the back burner.’’ Randall Froude

of a stream flowing through the bush, Froude said most of it was ‘‘just a smudge of green and cloudy colours’’.

‘‘The viewer is doing most of the work. I can do that and lead you or anybody else up to a point where you believe that it is bush and a stream, a gurgling stream.

‘‘Now you’re in a state of believing – and you can’t believe and disbelieve at the same time, and once I’ve got you there, I’ve got you.’’

Froude trained at the Elam art school in Auckland during World War II, and initially entered the world of commercial art and advertising, illustrating everything from comfy shoes to a Royal New Zealand Navy frigate. ‘‘I could turn my hand to anything.’’

Gradually, he found a market for his own work, and also discovered that he could teach.

Froude said he believed he had taught close to 4000 students in the 45 years he had been tutoring, including renowned Queenstown artist Ivan Clarke, creator of the Lonely Dog series.

Those students kept asking when his book was coming out, he said.

‘‘Being dyslexic, the thought of doing a book was frightening, so I continually put it on the back burner.’’ That changed after Froude moved to Richmond from South Canterbury in 2016 and met art exhibition organiser Sue Birchfield, who became his ‘‘unofficial PA’’.

‘‘She cranked me up and said, ‘You’ve got to do it’ – and so here we are.’’

Due to be launched at 10am today at Ambrosia Cafe in Richmond, copies of the book will be available for $49 on the day, or people can email randall.froude@gmail.com to organise a copy.

Froude on Wednesday said he hoped to live long enough to attend the launch of Behind the Easel.

‘‘This whole situation is quite weird, because I’m quite happy to go home and be with the Lord,’’ he said.

‘‘It’s a weird thing to sit here and [say] I might be dead on Sunday . . . but it’s a fact.’’