Obituary: Una Platts

Una Platts, schoolteacher, portrait painter, art historian. Died aged 97.

Una Platts, who died at the Takapuna house she designed, left a legacy of research into early colonial artists and a well-known book, The Lively Capital, about early Auckland.

Una Platts came from an old established South Island family. She was born in Wellington in 1908 but grew up in Auckland. She was educated at the Dioescan School for Girls and at the then Auckland University College from 1926-1927.

Embarking on a career as a schoolteacher, she served the usual appointments to country schools then returned to Auckland and many friends.

In her teaching days she introduced herself to children who might forget her name as: "I'm Miss Platts. Just think of the plaits in my hair." And she would point to the yellow-braided halo circling her head.

In the 1950s Una Platts began a long association with the Auckland City Art Gallery. She was the first associate of the gallery to research in depth and describe the work of early colonial artists.

Her first curated exhibition was devoted in 1954-1955 to the painter brothers Frank and Walter Wright. This was followed by a portrait exhibition, Early Identities, in 1955-1956.

Next came a collection of the works of J. C. Hoyte and, in 1958, what was possibly her most memorable show, Colonial Auckland, which brought together many paintings, drawings and prints from the period before 1910.

For all these exhibitions she tracked down exhibits and discovered artists previously unknown. Thanks to her work several female artists such as Miss Holmes from Dunedin were rescued from oblivion.

Miss Holmes was exhibiting competently in Otago art circles until 1876, when she vanished from the catalogues and was never chronicled again. At the time though a Mrs J. White appeared on the art scene.

"I made a wild guess. I thought I bet Miss Holmes married Mr J. White," Platts recalled.

Discovering that the Whites were an old Otago law firm, she wrote to a Judge White in Dunedin asking if, by any chance, his grandmother was the forgotten Miss Holmes. She was.

Una Platts contributed to exhibitions by other curators, most notably Colin McCahon. She formed a close and lasting friendship with McCahon and his wife, Anne.

In 1967 and 1968 she was one of two lecturers who joined in a successful adult education course of 10 sessions about colonial Auckland. This led in 1971 to the publication of The Lively Capital. It was followed in 1980 by Nineteenth Century New Zealand Artists.

Between those two publications Una Platts spent considerable time in New York (and also London) studying potraiture.

Portrait painting and the cultivation of many friends became her chief interests.

She lived to the end in her Takapuna house, watched over by a small team of willing helpers.