1. Rita Angus Exhibition, Te Papa
She painted and contributed a lot more to our national story than that little red railway station at Cass. Angus produced a remarkable body of drawings, watercolours and paintings and was a committed feminist and pacifist who created a unique image of 20th-century Aotearoa. Around 70 works will be exhibited from December 18-April 25 (that closing date is appropriate). Te Papa head of art Charlotte Davy says the exhibition highlights Angus' huge contemporary relevance. "The exhibition will draw out the themes of pacifism, feminism, and nature that shaped so much of Angus' work." The exhibition will be accompanied by a full catalogue, Rita Angus: A Survey, featuring all the works in the show and anchored by two major essays by Angus' biographer Jill Trevelyan and Dr Adrian Locke, Senior Curator at London's Royal Academy of Arts. Te Papa Press is also publishing a new edition of Trevelyan's award-winning book, Rita Angus: An Artist's Life in April.
tepapa.govt.nz
2. City Gallery Wellington, Central
When Swedish artist and spiritualist Hilma af Klint died in 1944, she left more than 1300 works, seen only by a handful of people, with instructions that they should not be publicly displayed until 20 years after her death. When her nephew finally unveiled her paintings in the 1970s, art history was turned on its head: her first abstract paintings were made several years before more famous male contemporaries such as Kandinsky and Mondrian — considered "the fathers of abstract art". The exhibition runs until March 27 and City Gallery Wellington is the only New Zealand venue for the exhibition of more than 100 paintings, including The Ten Largest – exuberantly colourful works that tower more than 3m, through which the artist explores the four stages of human development.
