Major new history reconsiders role of NZ women artists in modernist movement

Clockwise from left: A Lois White, Expulsion (circa 1939, oil on board); Molly Macalister, Bird Watcher (1961, cast cement); Maud Sherwood, Girl in the Boat, (1922, watercolour); June Black, The Dry Poet, (1960, mixed media); Olivia Spencer Bower, Self-Portrait (date unknown, watercolour). Images / supplied

Women artists made a large and often unacknowledged contribution in the creation of modernism. A new publication, and accompanying major exhibition at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, draws from work across the country, in public and private collections, to address that gap. The book highlights New Zealand modernist art made by women between 1920 and 1970 through more than 120 illustrations, and essays profiling 44 artists by art writers, curators and teachers.

Modern Women: Flight of Time edited by Julia Waite (Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, $65 hb) is out now while the exhibition runs until February, 2025. Photos / supplied

It also attempts to un-silo Aotearoa’s modern art from the modernisms happening elsewhere, exploring the myriad connections beyond this country and exceptional examples of modern art made elsewhere that now call NZ home. This includes the now-familiar 1918 portrait of Katherine Mansfield – someone who argued that social and cultural change had created possibilities for women to “lead all sorts of lives” – by the American Anne Estelle Rice, which now resides in Te Papa’s collection. The book widens the view beyond the customary figures of Colin McCahon, Rita Angus and Toss Woollaston to include the likes of Louise Henderson, Frances Hodgkins, Adele Younghusband, Elizabeth Ellis, Jacqueline Fahey, Edith Collier, and many other artists “hovering in the wings”.