Click on the thumbnails below to find out more.

Fay and Jane Birkinshaw  1938	Cleopatra  1938	Leo Bensemann  1938
Lawrence Baigent  1938-39/1943	Head of a Maori boy  1938-39	Self-portrait  1936-37
Self-portrait (in green jacket)  1936-37	Self-portrait  circa 1937	Rita Cook bookplate  1937-38
Composition with self-portrait  circa 1937	Portrait of Jean Angus  1937	Jean Angus  1937
Tilli Frankel  1939	Jean Stevenson  1937

Self-portrait

Click on the image to zoom in

Listen to the audio track now:

  Download as mp3 (0.76 MB)

Here, Rita Angus portrays herself as a ‘modern woman’ – urbane, stylish, and in complete control of her own destiny.

Everything in the picture is carefully staged, from the cigarette – billowing perfect smoke rings – to the beret, casually clasped over her elbow. Angus stares boldly out of the picture, a challenging yet guarded figure.

Angus first exhibited this work in 1937 under the title ‘Portrait’, so that only those who knew her would recognise it as a self-image. Today, it is one of her best-known pictures.