Rita Angus
Hugh Spencer, 1963
oil on canvas board
408 x 288mm
463 x 343mm framed
463 x 343mm framed
Further images
Rita Angus 1908 – 1970 A pioneering modernist, a radical, a deep thinker, and a quiet achiever, Rita Angus created an extraordinary body of artwork that is among the most...
Rita Angus
1908 – 1970
A pioneering modernist, a radical, a deep thinker, and a quiet achiever, Rita Angus created an extraordinary body of artwork that is among the most esteemed in New Zealand’s history. Given to a more refined pictorial approach to painting than her notable contemporaries Colin McCahon and Toss Woollaston, Angus created works of portraiture and landscape that have become some of the nation’s most iconic works.
In their text Women and the Arts in New Zealand, writers Elizabeth Eastmond and Merimeri Penfold describe the diverse work of Angus as follows, “The artist's work ranges from exquisitely delicate watercolours of flowers through what have come to be seen (to the Pakeha) as archetypal images of the New Zealand landscape, to surrealist imagery, and includes a large number of compelling portraits.” The writers also attribute the following statement of aims to Angus, from a 1947 artist’s statement, “As a woman painter (to) represent love of humanity and faith in mankind in a world which is to me, richly variable and infinitely beautiful […].”
Two works by Angus are included in Revisiting Modernism, which demonstrate two of the many facets of her storied practice. Hugh Spencer, 1963, is a superb example of her distinctive portraiture.
1908 – 1970
A pioneering modernist, a radical, a deep thinker, and a quiet achiever, Rita Angus created an extraordinary body of artwork that is among the most esteemed in New Zealand’s history. Given to a more refined pictorial approach to painting than her notable contemporaries Colin McCahon and Toss Woollaston, Angus created works of portraiture and landscape that have become some of the nation’s most iconic works.
In their text Women and the Arts in New Zealand, writers Elizabeth Eastmond and Merimeri Penfold describe the diverse work of Angus as follows, “The artist's work ranges from exquisitely delicate watercolours of flowers through what have come to be seen (to the Pakeha) as archetypal images of the New Zealand landscape, to surrealist imagery, and includes a large number of compelling portraits.” The writers also attribute the following statement of aims to Angus, from a 1947 artist’s statement, “As a woman painter (to) represent love of humanity and faith in mankind in a world which is to me, richly variable and infinitely beautiful […].”
Two works by Angus are included in Revisiting Modernism, which demonstrate two of the many facets of her storied practice. Hugh Spencer, 1963, is a superb example of her distinctive portraiture.