The Road People: Photographer Paul Gilbert’s candid images of the 70s house-truck community

This year, the festival’s theme is Movement [Kori]and Gilbert was, indeed, a man perpetually in motion – both on land and on sea, through his passion for maritime photography.

The exhibition has been curated by his younger sister, artist Linda Gilbert, who is creating an archive of his work.

Currently on an artist residency at Chateau d’Orquevaux, in the Champagne region of France, she’s writing a book about the archiving process through the prism of her brother’s legacy, with the working title Three Eyes Walking.

“That’s how Paul used to refer to himself,” she says. “And it’s absolutely true. Photography was his life. He always had that third eye of the lens.”

Paul Gilbert worked as a photographic technician with the DSIR (Department of Scientific and Industrial Research) and later the Auckland Art Gallery, photographing its collection.

He was a founding member of the photographic collective PhotoForum NZ, established in the early 1970s by John B. Turner, an influential mentor who encouraged Gilbert’s photographic career. He later spent many years as a tutor at Elam School of Fine Arts.

Here, his younger sister, Linda Gilbert, shares her memories of their challenging childhood and pays tribute to the man who kept her from going into state care and taught her to see with the eye of an artist.

I love all the Road People images because you’re immediately taken to those dusty back roads of the Coromandel and you feel the spirit of freedom, enterprise and creativity those young people had.

Paul was not only highly skilled technically, because of his training, but he also had an aesthetic eye that elevated his documentary images into works of art. He wasn’t the “other” looking into a social phenomenon; he was part of it.

It’s a time that’s gone now and, in retrospect, you can see how significant it was and how formative it was in our culture.

I hope people don’t discount the Road People as just radical hippies, like our father did. They were thoughtful, intelligent artisans. And the sheer inventiveness and architecture of those house trucks was phenomenal. In a way, I see them as prototypes for the tiny house movement, along with ideas around recycling and sustainability.

The theme of freedom was strong through Paul’s life, as well as his work. In 1975, he and two friends bought a large car and spent three months driving through Canada, the United States and Mexico on a road trip.

He was definitely influenced by that trip away, as well as experiencing the cultural shifts that occurred in the late 60s and 70s, such as Woodstock. So, I can understand why he would want to run off with the Road People. They were so exciting, brimming with art, politics and music.

He came to think of them as his family, which was good because ours had disintegrated by then. After so much upheaval, Paul found his people and they embraced him.

Paul was six years older than me and three years older than my other brother, Bruce. From the age of 13, Paul was expected to be the “man of the house” after our father left. Then, when our mother died unexpectedly, the three of us clung to each other like glue.

Within 18 months, we lost all the relatives we had contact with from our mother’s side of the family – our Scottish grandmother, who lived with us, her brother and then our mother.

Paul became our caregiver, looking after me and Bruce in our family home, which our father reclaimed when I was old enough to go to work at 15. There was no money and no family support. It was a very difficult time.

But our mother left us with a love for learning about, making and viewing art. Photography was one of her passions – our great-grandfather attended the Glasgow School of Art and was a keen early photographer and painter.

I can’t remember Paul ever not having a camera, and he was expert at using it to capture intimate, poignant images of those who happened to be closest to him.

He and Mum turned our bathroom into a darkroom and he used to sneak me into the photography studio at Boystown (as it was named then) to practise his lighting and printing, using me as his model.

We lived in Grey Lynn, which was a very poor, working-class suburb back then. It was also a time of social unrest in Aotearoa; people were disenfranchised and disenchanted with society.

Paul took me to protests against the Vietnam War and Bastion Point. The Dawn Raids were happening all around us. Our friends were being terrorised and racism was rife. The Polynesian Panthers were active; some of them were close friends of Paul’s.

Although it was tough, it was also exciting. There was such a social movement for change within our much-loved and diverse community.

In 2018, Paul and I had been planning a show together, but he died before we could hold it. Last September, I put together some early black-and-white images he’d taken and printed himself, some when he was just 15. I responded to them with abstract “energy maps” that I created using cyanotype, a very painterly photographic process.

I called the show Double Exposure: Creating with Spirit, and it was held in Studio One Toi Tū on Ponsonby Rd, which happened to be our local police station when we were young.

For the festival’s Road People exhibition, I chose images from Paul’s book that really capture that idea of movement. I also wanted to include some photos of the women who attended to family and domestic chores – sewing out in the open air and washing clothes on the back of the truck. Different forms of movement while on the road.

I’m a painter, not a photographer, but I remember Paul showing me how to draw and to develop the eye of an artist. He would encourage me to look at the clouds while I was on my swing in the backyard. “What shapes do you see? Where is the light and dark coming from?”

He’d sit with me as we looked at photographs and paintings in books, teaching me about contrast, lighting and composition.

In 2018, I came back to live in Auckland and finally finish my undergraduate degree. Paul had been diagnosed with cancer in late 2017.

He came to my graduation ceremony and was so proud. He insisted on taking me up to the museum to photograph me in my graduation regalia because the light was good on the Ionic limestone columns.

Afterwards, I had to physically help him across the field and have him admitted to Auckland Hospital because he was so unwell. But he always believed in the power of art and I couldn’t discourage him from marking this important day in the way he knew best – with photography.

Sadly, he wasn’t around to see me gain a Master of Fine Arts in 2023. For our family, it has been art that has sustained us.

I still feel very close to my brother, even though he has died. He could be acerbic and gruff on the outside. But beyond that hard shell, which came from having to survive, those who loved him knew he had a soft and generous side, with a huge heart and a gift for visual storytelling.

Despite such a challenging childhood, Paul was driven by his passion. He did it all against the odds and has left us with a wonderful legacy.

Joanna Wane is a senior lifestyle writer with an interest in social issues and the arts.