Rita Angus: Paint to Live and Live to Paint

7 July - 16 September 2001 in the Entire Gallery
This exhibition examines the work of major modernist painter Rita Angus, whose work has not been the subject of a major exhibition since 1982. The exhibition explores four aspects of Angus’s oeuvre: three were initiated and exhibited at the Hocken Library, Dunedin, and the fourth has been specifically curated for City Gallery Wellington.

‘Angus by Angus’ focuses on the painter’s series of self-portraits which like the self-representations of other female artists of her generation demonstrate a conscious construction and play with the self as a modern and independent female artist. The second and third parts of the exhibition feature paintings by Angus and fellow artists: Angus and Lawrence Baigent and Leo Bensemann from ‘The Cambridge Terrace Years’; and Marjorie Marshall with whom she painted in Central Otago. For the exhibition’s Wellington venue, younger Dunedin-based curator Vita Cochrane presents ‘Rita Angus’s Wellington’ which brings together work from the years Angus lived in Thorndon. Common threads link these perspectives, including national and local identity, the exploration and construction of self-identity, environmental concerns, fashion and book design.


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