RITA ANGUS: SELECTED WORKS
5 MAY - 17 JUNE

Rita Angus was one of New Zealand’s pioneer artists and this exhibition features 40 works covering the span of her career, from 1929 to 1969.  The exhibition has been developed from Te Papa’s 2008 retrospective exhibition Rita Angus: Life and Vision and draws from Te Papa’s collection and the Rita Angus Estate.  It includes portraits and self-portraits, landscapes, unfinished studies and seldom-seen items. The exhibition shows Angus’s commitment to pacifism, her strong feminist views, her spiritual beliefs, her love of nature and affinity for the New Zealand landscape.

Developed and presented by:
the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

Image: Rita Angus (1908–1970) Flight, 1969.
Oil on hardboard. Te Papa.



BOHEMIANS OF THE BRUSH
PUMPKIN COTTAGE IMPRESSIONISTS
5 MAY - 17 JUNE

'Bohemians of the Brush: Pumpkin Cottage Impressionists' will tell the little-known story of how James Nairn united modern artists from throughout the country in the 1890s and helped redefine New Zealand painting.  The exhibition will bring alive New Zealand's most famous artists' retreat, the legendary Pumpkin Cottage at Silverstream and convey how the bohemian artists at Pumpkin Cottage and the rebel Wellington Art Club exhibitions were regarded at the time.

The exhibition includes plein-air and impressionist paintings drawn from Expressions Arts and Entertainment Centre's Pumpkin Cottage Paintings Collection, and from public and private collections. Artists will include James Nairn, Mabel Hill, John Baillie, George Butler, Mary Elizabeth Tripe, Frances Hodgkins, Girolamo Nerli and their followers Fred Sedgwick, Edward Fristrom and Nugent Welch. 

Curated by Jane Vial for the Expressions Arts and Entertainment Centre, Lower Hutt.

Image: Mabel Hill, Akatarawa Road 1905. 
Watercolour 745 x 960 mm.
Expressions Arts and Entertainment Centre. 
Pumpkin Cottage Paintings Collection.
Gifted by Ernest and Shirley Cosgrove in 2008.




THE GROUP
12 MAY – 24 JUNE

Rita Angus was a regular participant in the annual exhibitions of The Group, along with artists such as Leo Bensemann, Colin McCahon, Toss Woollaston, Doris Lusk and Olivia Spencer Bower.  The Group began in 1927, almost as an art club, independent of the Canterbury Society of Arts, holding an exhibition in Christchurch virtually every year until 1977, when it disbanded.

This exhibition shows examples of The Group artists’ works from the 1930s onwards coinciding with the time Angus lived and worked in Christchurch.

Curated by Julie Catchpole.

Image: Rita Angus (1908 – 1970). 
Portrait of John Bush 1944. 
Oil on canvas 640 x 563 mm.
Private collection, Nelson.

FLOORTALK
Wednesday 30 May 12.10pm                                          
Julie Catchpole discusses The Group,
its formation and significance.

LECTURE
Saturday 9 June 2pm                                                               
Peter Simpson, writer, publisher and art historian,
presents an illustrated lecture on the Cambridge
Terrace years of The Group.

This suite of exhibitions and public programmes has been sponsored by the Nelson Suter Art Society, and Savage and Savage Chartered Accountants, Nelson.


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