Helen Stewart

Along with Adele Younghusband and Violet Bowring, Maud Sherwood and Helen Stewart were part of a group of Aotearoa New Zealand women artists based in Sydney during the 1930s. In 1937, The Sydney Morning Herald ran an article titled ‘Colony of New Zealand Women Painters in Sydney’ that discussed the four artists and was illustrated with photographs of them working in their respective studios. Stewart and Sherwood relished becoming part of the city’s lively modernist art scene and seized opportunities to exhibit in Sydney at the time. Sherwood remained in Australia for the remainder of her career while Stewart returned to Aotearoa after the war, settling in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington in 1946. Frances Hodgkins

(Timeless: Treasures from the Historical Collection 19 September 2026 – 30 May 2027)