Born in Northland, Pauline Yearbury (1926 – 1977) moved to Auckland in her teens to attend Elam School of Fine Arts. Curator Nigel Borrell has stated, “The first Māori person to gain a fine arts qualification was Pauline Yearbury (née Blomfield). In 1946, she graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts and went on to tutor part-time at the school in the years that followed. She is widely regarded as one of the first Māori artists to introduce Māori cultural narratives into contemporary art, in a practice that was characterised by a bold and illustrative style.” Yearbury became a leading figure in Māori modernist art, weaving themes of Māori myth and spirituality into her work. Known particularly for her incised wood panel works, Yearbury developed a distinctive modern art practice. Haka is a strong example of her work, with its incised, illustrative figures referencing customary Māori art and modernist approaches to image making.