Early years 1929-39
Rita Angus circa 1935
From the photograph album of Harvey Gresham.
Private collection
According to Rita Angus’s mother, ‘Rita drew as soon as she could hold a pencil and never stopped.’ Even as a child in Palmerston North, she clearly had unusual talent.
In 1927, aged 19, Angus moved to Christchurch to attend art school. She soon became interested in modern art and began to experiment with her style, as the works in this section show.
By the late 1930s, Angus had developed a strong awareness of herself as a woman artist and had painted some of her best-known works. Looking back on this period, she wrote, ‘My feminist viewpoint is a normal development in women. But I was precocious ...’
Cass 1936
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Rita Angus studied at the Canterbury College School of Art from 1927 to 1933. Her conservative teachers... more>
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Leo Bensemann 1938
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In 1936, Rita Angus rented a studio flat in Cambridge Terrace, central Christchurch. Just over a year later, her friend... more>
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