Emerging artists

In the late 1960s Rita Angus became increasingly irritated by repeated requests to reproduce images of her iconic early works Cass (1936) and Portrait of Betty Curnow (1942). Angus was concerned that the focus on these early works drew attention away from her current practice - here was an artist in her late 50s-early 60s, being represented by the work of her late 20s and early 30s.

I find it hard to remember, looking at the work of artists who I know through art history, not through association with my own life and age, that once they were young too. The first two rooms of Te Papa's current Rita Angus retrospective, for example, consist of works the artist produced before she was 30.

The Aviatrix (1933) is a new favourite - Angus was around 25 when she painted it.

Cass (1936) was painted when Angus was about 28 and

the masterly Self portrait (1936-1937) was finished before she turned 30.

Likewise, McCahon had already produced his early religious works by the time he turned 30: in 1947 alone, the year he turned 28, he painted Crucifixion according to St Mark, The Angel of the Annunciation, Entombment: after Titian and Crucifixion with lamp.

But no pressure, young artists! Take comfort from Gordon Walters: born in 1919 (same year as McCahon), he was a comparatively late starter. The Poet (1947) and New Zealand Landscape (1947) are probably his best known early works, and he was still a way away from the korus when he turned 30.

Images, from top, all from Te Papa's Rita Angus exhibition website

Rita Angus, The Aviatrix, 1933. Oil on canvas. Post Family Trust Collection.

Rita Angus, Cass, 1936. Oil on canvas on board. Collection of the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, purchased 1955.

Rita Angus, Self-portrait, 1936-37. Oil on canvas. Dunedin Public Art Gallery.

Monobrow mania

(a.k.a "My day of Ronnie van Hout")

I defy any reader to suggest a better example of the monobrow in New Zealand art than Rita Angus's 1938 portrait of Leo Bensemann



However, Melbourne's Hell Gallery recently staged a Monobrow exhibition, featuring work by several NZ artists, including Jacquelyn Greenbank, Emily Ireland and Ronnie van Hout:




Try getting that picture out of your head.

Images from top

Rita Angus, Leo Bensemann, 1938. Oil on canvas. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, gift of the Rita Angus Estate 1998. From the Te Papa website.

Ronnie van Hout, c. 2008.

Frita

Today's challenge: read Tessa DeCarlo's review in The Brooklyn Rail* of the SFMOMA/Walker Art Center Frida Kahlo exhibition, and replace every instance of 'Kahlo' with 'Angus'. I'm almost willing to wager it'll be the most insightful review of the show that you'll see.

From the review:

The knock on Kahlo is that her fame has less to do with art per se than with the “victim chic” of her biography—polio at six, a gruesome, crippling trolleycar accident at 19, marriage, divorce, and remarriage to Rivera, incessant infidelities, miscarriages, and surgeries—and the fact that, as a half-Jewish, half-mestiza, intermittently lesbian, disabled Mexican woman, she’s a veritable political-correctness punch line. It doesn’t help that she’s also wildly popular with people who are more likely to read People than ArtForum.

Indeed, many of Kahlo’s images are so familiar that encountering them in person is like a celebrity sighting: they’re smaller than you expect, yet denser with significance than anything else in the room. But unlike many celebrities, they look better in real life than on glossy paper.

Besides that, I think this is one of the best short reviews I've read in a while. Lively, informed, thoughtfully hooked into contemporary events, tackling the artist and the work, makes me want to write myself.

* By way of Tim Paul's quite splendid Museum Hours blog - thanks for the tip-off J

Dream a little dream.

Suzy's Coffee Lounge is one of my favourite Rita Angus paintings. the coffee lounge was a Wellington hangout for the slightly bohemian - Rita often dropped in for coffee. Suzy's was designed by architect Friedrich Eisenhofer - you can see original plans on nzhistory.net.nz

This house, built in 1968 to a Eisenhofer design, is currently for sale in Titahi Bay. If you happen to buy it, can you leave me a note in the comments and let me come visit?

Lovely RITA

Gaylene Preston's latest documentary 'Lovely RITA', on the life and work of Rita Angus, will be showing shortly around the country as part of the DOCNZ Festival.

You can catch it in:

Auckland – Academy Cinemas, 27 September at 7.15pm; 8 October at 2.45pm.

Dunedin – The Octagon, 11 October 2.10pm; 17 October 6.40pm.

Christchurch – Regent on Worcester, 25 October 2.10pm; 31 October 6.40pm.

Wellington – Regent on Manners, 9 November 7pm; 17 November 6pm.

Julian Dashper: To the Unknown New Zealander

I think Julian Dashper probably wins the 2007 most active artist award - the man is every where this year.

His new show, 'Julian Dashper: To the Unknown New Zealander' opens at the Christchurch Art Gallery on 10 August. The exhibition is a response to Rita Angus' iconic Canterbury landscape, Cass, a work that has interested Dashper since the mid 1980s. The show features some of iconic-ness of Dashper's own, with a suite of his drumkit works. Mention of which allows me to segue into this moment of artist-dealer historicity...





p.s. great font