Page 27 - Woman's Weekly - New Zealand (January 2020)

f you were passing through plenty of room for her to work
the former Farmers car
Ipark in downtown Auckland
back in the mid 1980s, there’s
a chance you may have
come across an elderly lady
working feverishly on giant
colourful canvases.
The unlikely venue had
become a makeshift studio
for one of Aotearoa’s most
prolific modern artists, Dame
Louise Henderson, as she
created her monumental
series, The Twelve Months.
The dame was in her 80s
when she embarked on the
ambitious project that depicted
impressions of life in New
PHOTOS: ROBERT TRATHEN • HAIR & MAKE-UP: JUSTINE CONROY
Zealand over a calendar year
on a dozen towering canvases,
a scale so colossal daughter
Diane McKegg (86) recalls the
challenges it posed for her
trailblazing mum.
“She would ask anyone who
was passing to help her turn the
work upside down as they were
almost twice her height.
“She had to because they
were huge paintings. It [the
car park] was an ideal place
to do it because there was
owns it couldn’t hang it in his
on them, but on the other hand
she couldn’t manage them on
her own.
“It was an enormous
challenge. I remember she was
very satisfied when they were
finished,” Diane says, adding
Louise was 85 when she
completed the series in 1987.
Now, more than three
decades later, 10 of the 12
paintings are on display at
Auckland Art Gallery where the
exhibition Louise Henderson:
From Life is celebrating seven
decades of the late artist’s work. completed series to be kept
It includes her early watercolours together in a public collection
featuring the Canterbury land-
scape, still-life compositions,
females depicted in cubism
and lush bush scenes.
There’s an added delight for
Diane, with one of the missing
artworks, owned by a private
collector, rediscovered at an
Auckland secondary school mid-
way through December last year.
“You know that they’ve found
April, don’t you?” an exuberant
Diane tells. “It was at Mount
Albert Grammar. It ended up
there because the person who
artistic journey. “I think it’s a
house. He was an old boy of beautiful exhibition. It covers
Mount Albert Grammar. all the different periods of her
“It was really such a relief work, is well documented and
because there are 12 months beautifully hung.”
in the year. We know that one Surrounded with an equally
(August) was cut down and stunning selection of Louise’s
therefore is no longer the same paintings on the walls of her
size as the others, however Auckland home, Diane says it
we could not find April. It wasn’t until her teenage years
became a kind of crusade that she started to appreciate
really because it did exist and her mum’s talent.
it was really very satisfying to “Like most children, to me
find it again,” she smiles. she was just my mother. It wasn’t
New Zealand art curator until we got to Auckland in 1949
Julia Waite says calls for the and she had the freedom to
paint as she was no longer
working full time, that I started
back in the day went unheeded, to become aware of this.
with the paintings dispersed “My mother could be in her
throughout the country. studio all day without coming
After an extensive search for out of it. She always used to
the lost month, and with most say, ‘There’s so much to do.’
of the paintings reunited for the She was never short of ideas.”
exhibition, Julia was surprised to With painting a way of life
learn a colleague had spied it for her French-born mother,
hanging in a school hallway. who taught art to secondary
“A few weeks after the school and tertiary students
exhibition opened, no-one and was an expert embroiderer,
came forward to say they had Diane recalls Louise’s attempts
the work and I began to worry to get her only daughter to
that April may never be found,” follow in her footsteps.
she says. “I’ve viewed the “She used to take me to
inting and it’s drawing classes on the weekend
interesting but I wasn’t in the least bit
erpretation of interested,” she tells. “I have
autumn month three daughters and they are
th small shards all talented in different ways,
colour fluttering but none of them paint.”
wn like autumn Diane, who grew up speaking
aves, and a French at home, says her mum
owded sky was pleased to be recognised
dark storm for her services to art when she
uds.” was awarded a damehood in
Buoyed by the 1993 at the age of 90.
iscovery, Diane With the opportunity to
ys she can’t celebrate her mother’s work
lp but feel 25 years after her death, Diane
roud wandering speaks authoritatively about the
rough the captivating canvases that adorn
ecially curated her walls, telling the Weekly
llection that how much they mean to her.
emonstrates “They are a great
e breadth of responsibility but also a source
er mother’s of great joy. I am always
pressive delighted when they are
exhibited and I have the
Auckland Art opportunity to share them.
Gallery’s show
celebrating “My mother said you don’t
seven decades own paintings, paintings are
of Louise’s there for everyone to enjoy,
work includes
paintings from so I don’t particularly
her Twelve possess them.” #
Months series. Lynley Ward
New Zealand Woman’s Weekly 27