Rhona Haszard painted this vibrant work in 1927 – a result of her 1926 visit to Presqu'île de Crozon (Crozon Peninsula) in Finistère, Brittany, with her second husband Leslie Greener. Their fellow expatriate New Zealand painter Sydney Thompson was in nearby Concarneau, and they evidently met him at this time. Still an energised, recent arrival in Europe, Haszard was then reaching the pinnacle of her artistic achievement and recognition. In 1927 she had a painting accepted for the Paris Salon, another for the Wembley British Empire Exhibition (winning a bronze medal) and a third in the Society of Women Artists Exhibition in London. The couple’s tight financial situation, however, led to them leaving Brittany later that year for Egypt, where Greener took up an art and French teaching role at a British boys’ school in Alexandria. A back injury sustained by Haszard in 1928 led to the couple’s separation during her prolonged treatment in London, a critically blighted relationship, and conceivably her tragic and untimely death in Alexandria in 1931.

(The Weight of Sunlight, 16 September 2017 - 16 September 2018)

Rhona Haszard studied at the Canterbury College School of Art in Ōtautahi Christchurch during the early 1920s before leaving for Europe with her husband and fellow artist, Lesley Greener, eventually settling in Alexandria in Egypt. On a trip to London in 1929, they visited the First Exhibition of British Lino-Cuts organised by Claude Flight and were immediately enamoured with the medium. Back in Alexandria, both Rhona and Leslie began working with linocuts, and the resulting prints were exhibited at Galerie Paul. A short while later their work was also included in the Second Exhibition of British Lino-Cuts in London in 1930. Rhona had much promise as a painter and printmaker, but she died tragically

Ink on Paper: Aotearoa New Zealand Printmakers of the Modern Era, 11 February – 28 May 2023