Revisiting Rita

It seemed promising. The catalogue for Rita Angus: New Zealand Modernist He Ringatoi Hou o Aotearoa claims that the project would ‘consider Rita Angus’s home in the world—a home shaped by international modernism, twentieth-century feminism and pacifism, and New Zealand’s art, social and cultural history’.¹ A fresh take on Angus’s work—how welcome that would be, as would locating her in a wider context than hitherto.

The exhibition was intended to be shown at the Royal Academy of Arts (RA) in London but the Covid-19 pandemic stymied this plan. Presumably the show was shaped with the intention of introducing Angus’s work to an overseas audience largely unfamiliar with New Zealand art. As an introduction, it serves well enough; for those already acquainted with her work and life story it offers little that is new. This is the third Rita Angus exhibition developed by the National Art Gallery/Te Papa; the first was in 1982, the second in 2008, the centenary of the artist’s birth. That exhibition, Rita Angus: Life, included more than twice as many works as the current show which, in comparison, seems sparse—a sparseness not ameliorated by the unattractive drops of brightly coloured fabric throughout the galleries.