An early advocate of regionalist painting in Waitaha Canterbury during the 1920s and 30s, Rata Lovell-Smith’s paintings were admired by the Shurrocks. They owned her 1929 painting Back Country, Lake Selfe Area, which they gave to the Gallery and can currently be seen in the exhibition He Kapuka Oneone—A Handful of Soil upstairs. Lovell-Smith relished the Canterbury landscape, particularly the foothills and mountains inland such as those seen in the distance of this view overlooking the Ōtautahi Christchurch suburbs of Southshore and New Brighton.

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