Dame Louise Henderson

b. 1902-1994, France
Lived in Aotearoa, New Zealand

Dame Louise Henderson is one of New Zealand’s most important modernist artists. Born in Paris in 1902, Henderson migrated to New Zealand in 1925, settling in Christchurch, and soon after took up studying art at the University of Canterbury. Her earliest works offered thoughtful and detailed observations of her new environment and she began to develop the hallmarks of her practice with a focus on the structural unity of inter-relating forms and spaces, and an expressive use of colour. As her work progressed, she exhibited with influential art association The Group in the 1930s.

Henderson moved to Wellington in the 1940s. There she developed an interest in modernism and began to experiment with fresh approaches image composition. In 1952, Henderson returned to Paris for a year to study under Jean Metzinger, one of the founders of the Cubist movement. During the mid and late 1950s, she spent a sustained period in the Middle East, punctuated with trips to Europe to view art galleries and museums. This time was formative for Henderson, and she produced a substantial body of highly accomplished artwork.

On return to New Zealand, she started disrupting the New Zealand art scene by working in a distinctively international, modernist style. She challenged the predominantly British, post-war narrative occurring in New Zealand art during the period, boldly investigating colour and form. Not limited to a particular mode of expression, her paintings engage in abstraction along with observations of people, nature, and life.

In the catalogue for her retrospective exhibition, 2019, published by Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, the curators noted, “Despite the seemingly dramatic shifts in style, which have been too easily dismissed as a dependency on different international art movements, Henderson’s oeuvre maintains a rigorous consistency. She sought to convey the essence of her subject through a complex visual language of layered and interlocking shapes” . This is evident in Henderson’s continuing artistic evolution, from her embrace of cubism through to creating works of pure abstraction.

Henderson’s artistic expression also included embroidery, stained glass, and tapestry, and she had a lifetime commitment to education. Born into an era in society where female artists and writers were not treated with the same respect as their male counterparts, Henderson is now rightly recognised as highly significant to Aotearoa New Zealand’s art history.

Gow Langsford Gallery has represented the Estate of Dame Louise Henderson since 2021.

References:

Milburn, F., Strongman, L., Waite, J. (eds) (2019) Louise Henderson From Life. NZ: Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, p. 14.