Rita Angus: Selected Works | Jo Hardy - A Survey

Rita Angus: Selected Works

Developed and presented by Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

Exhibited concurrently with Lifelines: Jo Hardy - A Survey and Sojourn in the North - A Contextual Exhibition of Rita Angus and her Circle.

Curated by Scott Pothan

Rita Angus was one of New Zealand’s pioneer artists.

The exhibition features 40 works by Rita Angus covering the span of her career, from 1929 to 1969. It includes paintings, watercolours and drawings, unfinished studies and seldom-seen items. The exhibition has been selected from Te Papa’s collection, and works cared for by the Museum on behalf of the Rita Angus Estate.

The exhibition draws on similar themes to Rita Angus: Life & Vision. It shows Angus’s commitment to pacifism, her strong feminist views, her spiritual beliefs, her love of nature and her affinity for the New Zealand landscape.

The exhibition includes portraits and self-portraits, landscapes, and her late depictions of Wellington and Hawke’s Bay. Several key works from the retrospective are featured, including Self-portrait (1929), Lawrence Baigent (1938–39/43), Central Otago (1953–56/69), and Flight (1968–69)

Sojourn in the North– A Contextual Exhibition of Rita Angus and her Circle

Curated by Scott Pothan. Whangarei Art Museum

This is an important contextual exhibition highlighting Rita Angus and the artists who encouraged and supported her in Northland in the mid-1950s. Whangarei Art Museum is exhibiting works from its own collection by Freda Simmonds, Eric-Lee Johnson and Olivia Spencer-Bower alongside a few works executed by Angus during her stay in Mangonui, when she came North after a turbulent time at Sunnyside Hospital in Christchurch. Her fellow artists from ‘The Group’ in Christcurch, Bill Sutton and Doris Lusk who also visited and painted in Northland, will also feature in conjunction with these artists showcasing the visual dialogue of modernism in New Zealand.