For a decade after moving to Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington in 1947, Evelyn Page also sent new work back to exhibit in Ōtautahi Christchurch. This work, a kind of proxy salutation to southern friends, was shown at the Canterbury Society of Arts in 1950 and in return was purchased for the society’s collection. A reviewer described her as an “artist who has sought her inspiration in the heart of the busy city rather than in the quiet countryside” and appraised this work as capturing “the spirit of a busy, narrow, untidy, congested street”. Page created another closely related version of this view of Lambton Quay by the junction of Featherston and Hunter Streets. This work includes the honey-coloured ANZ Bank, demolished in 1980, and the Bank of New Zealand building (at the right edge) which survives.

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