Brunette

With her right hand placed gently over her heart, this woman draped in blue has the air of a modern-day Madonna. Lois White gives an idealised serenity to Pauline Kahurangi Yearbury, her spirited colleague at the Elam School of Fine Arts.

White’s refined technique and focus on the figure set her apart from most of her New Zealand contemporaries. However, her stylised portraits and allegorical paintings fell out of fashion in the 1950s as abstraction emerged.

Another two decades would pass before the art world would rediscover White’s distinctive paintings and recognise the importance of her independent artistic spirit.