item details
NameWeeping women
ProductionA. Lois White; artist; 1939; New Zealand
Classificationoil paintings, works of art
Materialsoil paint, canvas board
Materials Summaryoil on canvasboard
Techniquesoil painting
DimensionsImage: 398mm (width), 499mm (height)
Registration Number2015-0039-1
Credit linePurchased 2015
Overview
Four faceless women bend in prayer, their bodies forming a rhythmic pattern against an eerie landscape. This decorative style and focus on the female figure is what set A Lois White apart from her New Zealand contemporaries.
White was best known for her religious and political allegories. Here, she likely uses the ‘weeping women’ as a pacifist symbol for mothers mourning children killed in war – a motif also used by Picasso in the early 1930s.