as Io, and Lark’s Song was based on a poem by Matire Kereama, whose book The Tail of the Fish deepened McCahon’s interest in Mäoritanga and Mäori imagery. In January 1971, he left Elam School of Fine Arts to paint full-time. McCahon produced both word and landscape paintings during this period, but words increasingly began to dominate his output. His works from this period include Victory Over Death 2, Gate III, and the Necessary Protection series, as well as numerous landscapes of the Kaipara area. A second retrospective of his work was presented at Auckland City Art Gallery in 1972, which later toured New Zealand. Later years In 1975, the Manawatu Art Gallery mounted the first exhibition to examine in detail a particular aspect of his past work, McCahon: Religious' Works 1946–1952. The implications of recent work were dealt with in the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery’s 1977 exhibition McCahon’s Necessary Protection; both exhibitions toured. Although McCahon’s work still attracted derision, support for his work was growing. By the late 1970s, McCahon’s health had deteriorated because of his long-term alcoholism, and he was suffering from dementia through Korsakov’s syndrome by the mid-1980s. In 1984, the exhibition "I Will Need Words" was presented as part of the Biennale of Sydney; McCahon was barely able to appreciate his growing international reputation due to his ill health. He died in Auckland City Hospital on 27 May 1987. On 6 June 1988, his ashes were scattered throughout the Muriwai headland. Auckland City Art Gallery presented another retrospective, "Colin McCahon: Gates and Journeys", the following year. Further major exhibitions both in New Zealand and overseas have followed. Style and themes McCahon is best known for his large paintings with dark backgrounds overlaid with religious texts in white. He was also an extensive landscape painter and was inspired in part by the writings of New Zealand geologist Sir Charles A Cotton in The Geomorphology of New Zealand (3rd ed. 1942), a scientific text that examined landscape forms and processes, illustrated with sketches, diagrams, and photographs. These diagrams ignored built features, trees, and objects irrelevant to his scientific themes as he attempted to strip the landscape to its geological basis. These precise drawings would inform McCahon in his efforts to find the landscape’s spiritual basis. After returning to New Zealand from visiting America in 1958, a significant change occurred in McCahon's work. Instead of using frames, he worked with