Mother and child (Patricia Fry with child)

This pen and ink drawing is by the New Zealand artist Helen Crabb. Crabb began as a painter, but by the 1940s and ‘50s she was mainly exhibiting closely-observed sketches like this one.

The drawing is of Patricia Fry, a student and friend of Crabb's, with one of her babies. Fry had young children in the 1950s and Crabb's drawings of her often evoke the love and hard work of motherhood. Fry wrote, in 1989:

After my son was born in 1952 she started coming out to our Island Bay house two or three times a week. We worked in oils, painting white on white, using one only of each of the three primaries plus white, sticking to these for a full year… After these sessions she stayed on and drew my children, often while I was feeding them.

Helen Crabb was born in the Manawatū in 1891. She took art and sculpture evening classes in Palmerston North, before moving to Sydney in 1913 to study at Julian Ashton’s art school. Crabb spent most of the next 30 years living in Sydney and the UK, first as a student, then as an art teacher. She returned to Wellington in 1943, where she set up an art school at her studio on Hobson Street.

In Wellington, Crabb took on the professional name ‘Barc’. She exhibited with other local artists like Helen Stewart, Evelyn Page and T.A. McCormack. Crabb taught a number of students who went on to have successful careers, including Avis Higgs, Joan Fanning and Patricia Fry.

References:
Patricia Fry, ‘Memories of Barc: Helen Priscilla Crabb (1891-1972), Art New Zealand 52 (Spring 1989), pp. 91-93.
Beryl Hughes. 'Crabb, Helen Priscilla', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 2000. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/5c43/crabb-helen-priscilla (accessed 16 January 2023)