Linda Herrick reviews Edith Collier: Early New Zealand modernist edited by Jill Trevelyan, Jennifer Taylor and Greg Donson for Kete Books:
‘This is a good year for artist Edith Collier, daughter of Whanganui, the city which belittled her vibrant, modernist work when it was first shown at the Sarjeant Gallery a century ago.
Collier had recently returned home after nearly 10 years of art education in London, with an exciting new direction inspired by exhibitions from Europe and tutors like expat New Zealand artist Frances Hodgkins. Back in Whanganui, Collier was invited to contribute works to a group show at the Sarjeant. Whanganui, and indeed, New Zealand, was not ready for modernism. Already diffident by nature, Collier’s confidence was bruised by the local paper’s sneering dismissal. She rarely exhibited again, and her enthusiasm for painting started to waver.
Instead, she cheerfully immersed herself in family life as the eldest of nine children, with a growing roll-call at one stage of 37 nieces and nephews. She cared for them and they, in turn, loved her and nurtured her artistic legacy.
That legacy is finally fully emerging. In November, the refurbished Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery in Whanganui’s Queen’s Park will re-open after a decade of restoration work marrying its imposing classic architecture with a modern new wing. The wing will house the Sarjeant Collection, including more than 400 works on permanent loan from the Edith Collier Trust, a longstanding partnership between the family and gallery.
An Edith Collier exhibition will run as part of the gallery’s grand re-entry into the world, called Nō Konei/From Here.
As a prelude to those celebrations, Massey University Press’ gorgeous new book on Collier is a comprehensive introduction to her life and art which follows on from Joanne Drayton’s excellent biography published in 1999.
It includes an impressive range of perceptive essays (and a poem), more than 150 immaculately reproduced art works (her glowing greens are a revelation), and striking photos of Edith during her passage through life.
Editor Jill Trevelyan’s opening chapter offers a thorough overview of Collier’s life from 1885-1964. Although Collier’s views of herself were modest - “I am not a gusher”; “A peculiarity I am and always will be” – others disagreed.
When Collier attended Frances Hodgkins’ painting school in Cornwall in 1920, Hodgkins, not given to gushing herself, noted: “I’ll make something of her.” But she already was something.’
Read the rest of the review here.
