Exhibitions
Events
On display
Rita Angus's Cass
Rita Angus Cass 1936. Oil on canvas on board. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 1955. Reproduced courtesy of the Estate of Rita Angus
Art Bite
Past event
Meet at the front desk
Free
To mark the final week of In the Vast Emptiness on the ground floor, join guide coordinator Rebecca Ogle as she discusses one of New Zealand's favourite paintings, Cass by Rita Angus.
Art Bites are 30-minute lunchtime presentations on a single work on display, presented by our staff, guides and guest speakers.
There's a new Art Bite to enjoy every Friday at 12.30pm.
Related
Exhibition
In the Vast Emptiness
21 August 2016
The Canterbury landscape as captured by twentieth century painters.
Collection
Rita Angus Cass
This work by Rita Angus has come to symbolise the hard-edged clarity of the Canterbury school of landscape painting. It was made following the artist’s ten-day visit to the remote high country railway settlement of Cass in 1936 with painters Louise Henderson and Julia Scarvell. The Canterbury style was also associated with an atmosphere of isolation and emptiness, often emphasised through small signs of human occupation and intervention placed within a much larger natural environment. While these aspects play an important role in Cass, the work also benefits from a sense of expectation, as we wait, with that solitary, overcoat-clad figure, for the train to arrive.
(Absence, May 2023)