The Dark Dad: War and Trauma -- A Daughter’s Tale

Art historian Mary Kisler grew up in the early 1950s with a father who talked little, whose affection she cherished and whose anger she feared. She later came to understand the trauma that lay behind his dark moods: rejection and violence in his childhood and the brutal experience of being a prisoner of war in Italy and then Germany from late 1941 to 1945.

In this affecting memoir, she traces back through her father’s life and war record, discovering a man who had suffered but who ultimately found peace of mind among the people he loved most.

Art historian, curator and writer Mary Kisler MNZM worked for 21 years at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, latterly as Senior Curator, Mackelvie Collection, International Art. In 2016, she was Craig Hugh Smyth Fellow at the Harvard Centre for Renaissance Art, Villa I Tatti, Florence, researching Italian works held in New Zealand Public Collections. Her previous publications include Angels & Aristocrats: Early European art in New Zealand public collections (Godwit, 2010); Finding Frances Hodgkins (Massey University Press, 2019).