B.
Wainui - to the west of the long harbour
Behind the scenes
"I like Wainui, quaint, charming, rather like a Pieter Bruegel subject with the haymaking in progress." Rita Angus to Douglas Lilburn, 1943
Last night I gave a talk on works recently acquired by the Gallery and was struck by the audience's response to the three Rita Angus watercolours of Wainui that we have been fortunate enough to acquire since 2010. Indeed so popular were they with the audience that at the end of my talk there was a request to put the slides of them back up on the screen. And rightly so, as I think these works are some of Rita's finest – exquisite gems painted with assurance, skill and breathtaking attention to detail, they are the sort of works that punch well above their weight. Here's a link to an article giving more details on Rita's extraordinary Wainui series - check it out.
Wainui makes for a perfect day trip from Christchurch, a quieter more laid-back destination than Akaroa, which it has to be said can get a little chaotic with the cruise ships visiting over summer. Although there are a few more baches at Wainui than when Rita was there in 1943, it still has amazing views across the harbour, out to Timutimu Head and surrounding hills. One staff member's pick for a summer's day trip.
Looking across Akaroa Harbour from Wainui
Timutimu Head from above Wainui
Old Cheese factory at Wainui
Rita Angus Akaroa Hills 1943. Watercolour. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, N. Barrett Bequest Collection, purchased 2010
Rita Angus Wainui, Akaroa 1943. Watercolour. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, N. Barrett Bequest Collection, purchased 2010
Rita Angus Haycocks Wainui 1943. Watercolour. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 2013
Related reading: In the Vast Emptiness
Collection
Rita Angus Akaroa Hills
In the summer of 1943, during the height of World War II, Ōtautahi Christchurch artist Rita Angus was called up by the Industrial Manpower Board to report for work at a local factory as part of the country’s war effort. Angus was a pacifist, so she chose instead to move to Wainui, a small coastal settlement in Akaroa Harbour, where she spent several weeks. Wainui as a refuge, a place of retreat and recuperation for Angus, and she embarked on an extraordinary series of small watercolours of the surrounding landscape. The intense attention to detail and her precision and clarity in applying the watercolour paints is exceptional. Angus wrote: “Wainui is charming, the bach is built on a rise overlooking the harbour and opposite Akaroa, and the weather has been rather wonderful. […] I find the bach very comfortable, most of my subjects are near here. I’m aware of much I’ve not noticed before, and how very short is one’s life. Again a hermit, I can reflect on the last few weeks in Christchurch, they were wonderful weeks to me. […] I thought I could be a more simple hermit than I am.”
He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil (from August 2024)
Collection
Rita Angus Wainui, Akaroa
In the summer of 1943, during the height of World War II, Ōtautahi Christchurch artist Rita Angus was called up by the Industrial Manpower Board to report for work at a local factory as part of the country’s war effort. Angus was a pacifist, so she chose instead to move to Wainui, a small coastal settlement in Akaroa Harbour, where she spent several weeks. Wainui was a refuge, a place of retreat and recuperation for Angus, and she embarked on an extraordinary series of small watercolours of the surrounding landscape. The intense attention to detail and her precision and clarity in applying the watercolour paints is exceptional. Angus wrote: “Wainui is charming, the bach is built on a rise overlooking the harbour and opposite Akaroa, and the weather has been rather wonderful. […] I find the bach very comfortable, most of my subjects are near here. I’m aware of much I’ve not noticed before, and how very short is one’s life. Again a hermit, I can reflect on the last few weeks in Christchurch, they were wonderful weeks to me. […] I thought I could be a more simple hermit than I am.”
He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil (from August 2024)
Collection
Rita Angus Haycocks, Wainui
In the summer of 1943, during the height of World War II, Ōtautahi Christchurch artist Rita Angus was called up by the Industrial Manpower Board to report for work at a local factory as part of the country’s war effort. Angus was a pacifist, so she chose instead to move to Wainui, a small coastal settlement in Akaroa Harbour, where she spent several weeks. Wainui was a refuge, a place of retreat and recuperation for Angus, and she embarked on an extraordinary series of small watercolours of the surrounding landscape. The intense attention to detail and her precision and clarity in applying the watercolour paints is exceptional. Angus wrote: “Wainui is charming, the bach is built on a rise overlooking the harbour and opposite Akaroa, and the weather has been rather wonderful. […] I find the bach very comfortable, most of my subjects are near here. I’m aware of much I’ve not noticed before, and how very short is one’s life. Again a hermit, I can reflect on the last few weeks in Christchurch, they were wonderful weeks to me. […] I thought I could be a more simple hermit than I am.”
He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil (from August 2024)
Notes
Canterbury Landscape by Colin McCahon
In 2014 we purchased an important landscape work by Colin McCahon. Curator Peter Vangioni speaks about this new addition to Christchurch Art Gallery’s collection.
Notes
Mountains, Cass by Rita Angus
This article first appeared as 'The wonders of waterolours' in The Press on 11 August 2015.
Notes
100 years of the Cass field station
Last weekend the University of Canterbury Biology Department celebrated the 100th anniversary of the field station at Cass with a symposium on Cass followed up with a field trip to the station.
Notes
CASS
This week 77 years ago Rita Angus visited Cass on a sketching holiday with Louise Henderson and Julia Scarvell that resulted in several paintings including the Christchurch Art Gallery's Cass.
Notes
CASS
André Hemer's exhibition CASS is well worth a visit if you are near the Christchurch Art Gallery's space above NG on Madras street.
Notes
Another nor’wester descends on Canterbury
Some people fear them, others revel in the unforgiving dry heat – love them or hate them the legendary Canterbury nor'wester is one of the defining features of this region in the summer months and there is a real doozy blowing outside at the moment.
Notes
Heart in the high country: Austen Deans (1915 - 2011)
For Austen Deans, OBE, painting was an expression of his love of the outdoors and, in particular, the Canterbury high country.
Notes
Sutton high-fives McCahon
Nothing made it into a W.A. Sutton painting by accident, and the white line that rises diagonally through the sky in Plantation Series II is no exception.
Article
Exquisite Treasure Revealed
Canterbury Museum holds two albums compiled by Diamond Harbour artist Margaret Stoddart. The older of the two, containing images featured in this Bulletin, and itself currently exhibited in the Gallery, covers the period 1886–96. The album is handsomely bound in maroon, and stamped M.O.S. in gold. It contains a sort of travelogue by way of black and white photographs set amongst decorative painting, mostly of native flora, with some locality and date information.