Evelyn Page exhibited this work, then titled ‘Mount Olympus at Dusk and Sailors Playing’, in the 1949 Christchurch Group exhibition. It pictures American naval officers playing baseball on the wharves in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington after an extended exploratory visit to the Antarctic in 1946–7. The Mount Olympus was the flagship of the largest Antarctic expedition to-date, an American venture that attracted much national press coverage. This was a time when territorial claims for Antarctica were still unfixed and various nations were eyeing the frozen continent with industrial and military strategies in mind.

(From Here on the Ground, 18 May – 17 November 2024)