KEY POINTS:
In a photograph taken in 1930, Rita and Alfred Cook sit side by side in front of a hastily improvised backdrop. Rita huddles into her voluminous coat and gazes impassively at the camera while Alfred, with his thinning hair and nervous sideways glance, looks less composed and somewhat ill at ease. The pair, both aged 22, seem prematurely middle-aged. This, the only surviving photograph of Rita and Alfred, was probably taken on the day of their wedding, which was organised by Alfred's mother at the Cook family home in Ferry Rd, Christchurch. James Cook and Jessie Lloyd served as witnesses.
Rita's other friends greeted her marriage with surprise. Juliet Peter, who lived at the Bishop Julius Hall and attended the School of Art in the mid-1930s, recalled, "She had suddenly upped and left Art School to marry Alfred Cook, to the disapproval of those around at the time ..." For Rita's parents [in Napier] the news was completely unexpected, and [her sister] Jean, who was then 15 years old, would retain a vivid memory of their shock: "Father just stared at the telegram and Mother went over and looked over his shoulder and I did not know for an hour or two what was in the telegram ... Mother went in to [Rita's sister] Edna who was washing and I heard her asking about the man. Edna just remembered Jimmy [James Cook, Alfred's brother]. 'She must be mad,' I heard someone say. I wished I knew what it was all about."
Rita had led a sheltered life and was yet to complete her diploma but, worse, her parents knew nothing of Alfred, who had never been mentioned in her letters home. William and Ethel were relieved when their daughter and her new husband arrived in Napier late in the evening of 15 June, in what Jean described as "a funny old baker's van". Alfred quickly established a rapport with his in-laws, impressing them as a considerate and agreeable young man and a welcome addition to the family.
Little contemporary comment has survived about the man who became Rita's husband, but those who knew him in Sydney later in his life described him as an extremely shy and modest person who was "an amazing fount of knowledge" about art. His student and friend Brian Stratton noted that he tended to be a loner: "He didn't find it easy to relate to people. He was happiest out in his Kombi van, racing around doing his painting." Temperamentally, Alfred was Rita's opposite, passive and retiring, while she was emerging as an increasingly assertive and opinionated young woman. He was a second son who had grown up in the shadow of his gifted brother, while she was a strong-willed and rather indulged eldest child. Jean observed that Alfred seemed to be "very young for his age" compared with her sister.
The marriage that startled Rita's family remains puzzling today and, with the benefit of hindsight, it is tempting to detect flaws at the outset. But in Napier after their wedding the couple impressed William and Ethel as a well-matched pair, united by their absorption in art. The Angus family had little time to form an impression, however, since within a month the Cooks were in Auckland, renting a house in Mt Eden Rd so that Rita could attend classes at the Elam School of Art.
Considering that Rita admitted she and Alfred "married on the spur of the moment", the question arises: was the wedding prompted, at least in part, by their plan to visit Auckland together? At this stage of her life Rita could hardly have lived and travelled with Alfred as an unmarried woman. This was her first major trip away from family, hostel and flatmates and she was not yet a confident traveller. The notion of an alliance of convenience does not accord with Rita's idealism and romanticism, but neither was this a passionate union, if her contemporaries are to be believed. According to several accounts, including those of Alfred's second wife and of Rita's partner of the late 1930s, the marriage was never consummated.
Rita's marriage needs to be seen in the context of the period: a time when young, unmarried, middle-class women had a rather ambiguous status and, in polite society at least, limited freedoms. For a woman of Rita's ideals and ambitions, it is quite likely that marriage, especially if there were no children, seemed to offer a greater degree of freedom than single life. Marriage promised companionship with someone who shared her commitment to art and the social and financial advantages were considerable. In Christchurch she had the example of prominent artist-couples such as Rata and Colin Lovell-Smith and Elizabeth and Cecil Kelly. In both cases the women appeared to flourish - in fact it was they who enjoyed the greater reputation as painters.
For Rita, marriage implied a degree of "protection" - a word she used a good deal, and often linked to the concept of freedom. In 1942, for example, she wrote, "I am left alone and free to work as I wish, and I have protection." This was the protection that would enable her to live her life as a painter in a country where art - serious art - was a highly unusual if not eccentric pursuit. The lack of recognition and support was a problem for all artists, not just women, and it took a toll on Rita's generation. As Douglas Lilburn put it, "The old predicament of being a creative artist in a small remote country without real tradition - this is an intangible oppression." Rita's desire for protection may seem at odds with her advanced ideas about female roles, but it needs to be seen in the context of her time, place and career. As an artist in a culture that was largely indifferent to her work, she would retain until the end of her life an intense longing for understanding and acceptance.
During the winter of 1934 Rita became seriously ill with a faulty heart valve. It was a long, tiring illness and her frustration - "she hated not being able to paint" - made life tense and difficult for the other members of the household. Jean recalled, "I nursed her (she was completely confined to bed). Alfred gave me lots of support which I needed because Rita was an awful patient (like Mother). The doctor came daily and took pulse and heartbeats etc ... Rita didn't want to go to hospital."
It was after Rita had recovered from her illness that she and Alfred decided to separate. Under New Zealand legislation of the 1930s, divorce could be obtained at the court's discretion once a couple had been separated for three years, without attributing blame to either party. This was liberal compared with other countries, but the stigma remained, regardless. Divorced women were particularly disadvantaged, for they were seen as tainted, immoral and even threatening to the social fabric. When Rita's near-contemporary, the Canterbury artist Rhona Haszard, divorced her husband, her sister described it as "a big family upset, for in those days divorce was considered terrible".
Rita was determined to go her own way and not be bound by traditional mores. "I broke through my rigid Puritan upbringing," she wrote, "and the strict conventional code. It took me three years to adjust my mind to my position in society." The evidence suggests that her "adjustment" was not quite so straight-forward, however, and her separation certainly remained a point of great sensitivity. "I know the words that are spoken of me," she wrote in 1946, "and the repetition through the years has appalled me." Well into the 1950s she took pains to explain and justify her divorce to family and friends, often citing historical precedents. "Divorce by mutual consent is very ancient legislation," she wrote to Jean in 1949. "I divorced Alfred Cook at his request (there is no social stigma to either of us)."
Twelve years after separating from Alfred, Rita offered an explanation for the break-up of her marriage. From a letter of 1946: "I was unhappy during my marriage because of the repression of my talents, though it was agreed before my marriage that we both painted. At first my husband did not wish me to paint in my way but his and, in the third year of marriage, not at all. I gave up painting for the sake of peace, and began to earn my living as a poster designer and part-time art teacher at Selwyn House School, Papanui and looked after a flat, etc. A few months later, I was seriously ill and on the verge of dying. The doctor came two and three times a day, and Jean nursed me. When I was better I knew I could not remain with my husband, because I should probably become ill again and would die ... We separated under a three years agreement and were divorced on the grounds of mutual incompatibility of temperament."
Two years later she returned to the subject: "There came a subtle rigid change in my ex-husband's attitude of mind to me, following the first two years of marriage, when he became a Master with a Diploma in Fine Arts. He assumed (whereas before we had been more as companions) an authority over me which, with other factors, broke my health. He disliked some of my paintings and at his request I destroyed work, for I was his wife. I agreed, for peace, to give up painting. A few months after this, in the fourth year of marriage I became seriously ill (life and death for five days). There was no return but death. That is what happened."
This is the classic narrative of the controlling husband and the passive wife, in which Rita emerges as the heroine in her refusal to bow to her partner's demands. Given the social mores of the time, she may well have faced considerable pressure to assume a more traditional feminine role, and not just from her husband. Rita's brothers believed that Mrs Cook expected her daughter-in-law to retire from painting and become a full-time home-maker. The suggestion is plausible: with two able artists in the family, she scarcely needed a third.
Rita may have seen the choice between marriage and art as starkly as her writing suggests, but in the absence of her husband's testimony her account needs to be treated with caution. She was looking back after more than a decade, and a great deal had changed in the interim. Like her contemporaries Toss Woollaston and Colin McCahon, Rita evolved an account of her beginnings as a painter in order to justify and explain her vocation, and the story of her marriage became part of this personal narrative. By shifting the blame to Alfred for stifling her talent, her separation became inevitable. The rationale lay in her art: "Cass and all the paintings since would never have been painted, had I chosen to die. And that fine thread of beauty I am discovering in myself, which I give through my work, raises the quality for the world about me, just a little, if only a few see, it is still always there."
Jean Angus, who had ample opportunity to observe the dynamics of the Cook marriage, had a different perspective. She remarked, "It wasn't a conventional marriage for Rita. In fact, Rita was the domineering factor." She noted that, although her sister cooked the evening meal, "the other chores were shared out - Mrs Cook was an excellent housekeeper." Jean never heard Rita and Alfred criticising each other's work, and believed that they "were happy painting together. It was a common bond, not a destructive element ... They respected one another's work." Jean's account also suggests a hardening in Rita's attitude over the years: "During the time following her separation and, later, divorce, Rita often talked of Alfred, but it was much later, after her illness in 1949, and when I think she was settled in Wellington, that she criticised Alfred's attitude to her work (said Alfred criticised her work). She would not have any of his work about - Mother and I moved them from our walls." o
* Rita Angus: An Artist's Life, will be released on Tuesday (Te Papa Press $69.99). A major retrospective exhibition, Rita Angus: Life and Vision, will open at Te Papa in July and tour nationwide.
