Margaret Stoddart
Aotearoa New Zealand, b.1865, d.1934
Old Homestead, Diamond Harbour
- 1913
- Watercolour
- Purchased, 1959
- 383 x 494mm
- 69/25
- View on google maps
Tags: buildings (structures), chimneys (architectural elements), cottages, flowers (plants), gardens (open spaces), houses, Impressionist (style), paths, sunlight, trees
About the artist
Margaret Stoddart, from The Weekly Press 9 June 1909
In 1907, Margaret Stoddart returned to New Zealand after almost ten years studying and working as an artist in England and Europe. Her mature style embraced an impressionist stance, and her interest in light, gardens and flowers was superbly conveyed through her favoured medium of watercolours, at which she excelled. Te Waipapa / Diamond Harbour lies on the southern shore of Lyttelton Harbour and was named after the way the sunlight sparkles off the water by the artist’s father Mark Stoddart, one of the first European settlers in the region. Depicting the original Stoddart family cottage and garden, Old Homestead, Diamond Harbour was painted at the time the Stoddart family sold their property and moved in to Christchurch.
(Our Collection: 19th and 20th Century New Zealand Art, 2018)
Exhibition History
Diamond Harbour lies on the southern side of Lyttelton Harbour and is named after the way the sunlight reflects like diamonds off the water. Margaret Stoddart’s father, Mark Pringle Stoddart, was one of the original European settlers in the region, and he arranged for the cottage depicted in this work to be made in Australia and brought out around 1861.
This painting is from Stoddart’s mature period, completed several years after her return from studying art in Europe between 1898 and 1906. Her mature style is marked by a very expressive watercolour technique combining fluid washes of colour in a spontaneous manner.
Stoddart was born in Diamond Harbour on Banks Peninsula, but in 1876 the family sailed for Britain and she received her early education in Edinburgh. The family returned to New Zealand in 1879, and in 1882 Stoddart enrolled at the Canterbury College School of Art. She was a founding member of the Palette Club, whose members were concerned with painting outdoors. (Label date unknown)