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Overview
Rita Angus depicts herself with honesty and restraint in this pencil and wash drawing. It is one of a series of nude self-portraits she made in 1942, following the devastating miscarriage of her pregnancy to the composer Douglas Lilburn.
Both the miscarriage, and the end of her romantic relationship with Lilburn, marked a turning point for Angus. Shortly after the miscarriage Angus told her friend Betty Curnow that she had decided she would never marry, devoting herself instead to her art. In June 1942 she took a vow of chastity, writing in a letter to Lilburn: ‘I am quietly regaining my virginity because I wish to serve the arts.’
This watercolour and pencil work is a reckoning with the female body – something that Angus saw as both key to the power of her painting, and as a reality to be navigated in order for her to fulfil her artistic vision.