A keen gardener, Rita Angus painted flower studies throughout her career. During the 1940s in particular she painted some very elegant and botanically exact works such as Irises. Her flower studies allude to the symbolic meanings of flowers, a common feature of Medieval and Renaissance art. She often included flowers in her portraits to represent their associated meanings. The iris stands for faith, wisdom and hope. Angus was born in Hastings. She studied at the Canterbury College School of Art from 1927 to 1933. In 1930 she married Canterbury artist Alfred Cook and, although they separated in 1934, she signed her work ‘Rita Cook’ until 1941. She lived and worked in Christchurch until 1955 when she moved to Wellington. In 1958 Angus was awarded an Association of New Zealand Art Societies Fellowship, which allowed her to visit England and Europe.

Leo Bensemann made this portrait when he and Rita Angus were neighbours. The friends occupied adjacent studio flats in a Cambridge Terrace house here in Ōtautahi Christchurch owned by the painter Sydney Lough Thompson, Bensemann sharing his with Lawrence Baigent. They all used the same kitchen and bathroom, and often entertained together. As artists, it was a creative and stimulating environment. “Both our studio doors were thrown open”, Baigent recalled. “Doors were never locked or shut.” Bensemann and Angus frequently made portraits of each other – some flamboyant, others more introspective, like this one. They are fascinating records of two strong personalities and their complex friendship.

(Dear Shurrie: Francis Shurrock and his contemporaries, 8 March – 13 July 2025)

“I live out my own world & follow in the lives of Frances Hodgkins […] and other women painters,” wrote Rita Angus. One of those painters was fellow Waitaha Canterbury artist Margaret Stoddart. Like Margaret, Rita developed a deep appreciation of botanical subjects in her work. Although both artists are known for their landscapes, their approach to watercolour couldn’t be more different; Margaret’s lively impressionistic approach contrasts with Rita’s work, which is rich with the detail usually reserved for a botanical artist illustrating a scientific journal.

(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- )

Zina Swanson’s precise, yet poetic painted drawings call attention to the delicacy and vulnerability of nature. Plant matter, insects and other tiny objects she collected over several years take fresh life in brushstrokes that range from feathery to forensically precise. Zina’s interest in her personal – and our human – relationship with the natural world led her to imagine a strange form of cross-species rehabilitation, where wilting forms are supported, a cutting grows the feet of a bird and processed timber receives new prosthetic roots. Her latest painting recounts an early foray into collecting, when she salvaged a discarded stick so large it had to be cut into three and reassembled in her studio. In an associated poem, she wrote: Making them part of my life, by making them part of my paintings Making a special shelf for them in my studio The collection keeps growing.

(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- )