Louise Henderson October

It was in 1987, at the age of 85, that Louise Henderson undertook one of her most ambitious series of paintings. The Twelve Months is a monumental body of work comprised of 12 large canvases, one for each month of the year. These works were exhibited in the major survey exhibition Louise Henderson: From Life, which showed at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū in 2019 and 2020. Collectively, they represent one of the most significant accomplishments of the distinguished artist’s career.

1 Felicity Milburn, “I Follow Unruly Nature,” in Louise Henderson: From Life, ed. Felicity Milburn, Lara Strongman and Julia Waite (Auckland and Christchurch: Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, 2019), 141.

In the exhibition publication for Louise Henderson: From Life, Felicity Milburn, Lead Curator of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, states, “Any painting 2.5 metres high would be an ambitious undertaking; Henderson painted an insouciant dozen of them the year she turned 85. An extraordinary and enduring achievement in the history of New Zealand painting, they demonstrate how Henderson deployed both colour and imagination to enliven the taut geometry of cubism, creating paintings that communicated a deeply felt connection with the natural and social rhythms of her adopted country.”1

October by Louise Henderson on view at Charlotte H Galleries in 1987.

October is a key work from this iconic series. Exhibited at both venues in Louise Henderson: From Life, it carries significance as a major work from the artist’s oeuvre. Painted in rich yellows, blues and greens, October conveys a palpable sense of the promise of spring. This painting, as well as the wider body of The Twelve Months, was Henderson’s personification of the exploration of the “abstract poetic of nature.”2 Henderson’s aptitude for vibrant colours, exploration of the natural world, and embracing of cubism is evident in October.

The tenth month of the year, and namesake of this artwork, is one that Henderson associated with the birth of her only child, Diane. Within October, the central image resembles a pregnant woman; the curved belly dominates the canvas, while the limbs and head disappear beyond the borders of the work. A curved, yellow-gold belly is speckled with pastel globes of red, orange, pink and lilac, which Henderson described as “bubbles of life circulating in the womb.”3 Here, Henderson’s own joy for approaching parenthood appears to fizz and bloom from the artwork. Furthermore, October is a brilliant example of Henderson’s strong interest in blending organised cubism with the corporeal experience of nature — she injects the tight configuration of cubism with a strongly personal and poignant thread that is rooted in nature and the seasons of the body.

Rather than slip into a quiet retirement, Henderson provided us with this twelve-work series of bold, lively and energetic works. Yes, The Twelve Months examines how the seasons of Aotearoa morph, yet Henderson drew on her own wealth of experiences when creating the series. October, a stunning artwork in terms of visual aesthetic, is testament to the lived experiences that Henderson utilised when creating the series, and is a hallmark of her ability to employ colour and design in synchronisation.

EST $70,000 — $90,000

PROVENANCE

Private collection, Auckland.

Pat Hanly is one of New Zealand’s finest and most significant artists. Revered as a painter, Hanly also experimented with different mediums. His interest in the rudimentary employment of form, line and colour led the artist into printmaking and collage that he crosspollinated into his paintings.

Hanly’s work was informed by his personal life and responded to issues of social, political and environmental urgency. Hanly was very much a humanist in his approach. While the themes in his work drew on personal experience, his intention was ultimately for his work to be universally relatable, by emphasising those relational dynamics of love, family and friendship.

Like many of his contemporaries, Hanly's work was symptomatic of the experience of being avant-garde in this country at a time which was culturally and politically conservative. However, counter to his contemporaries’ reflexive modus operandi of sombre palettes, brutalist expression and dark overtones, Hanly produced bright and energetic work, characterised by soft rhythmic lines. Hanly’s use of colour, albeit typically joyful, is also at times tonally harsh, and optically jarring. Upon returning to New Zealand in 1967 from a period of living in Britain, Hanly remarked on how extremely harsh he found Aotearoa's light. However, while we can metaphorically deduce his use of acidic yellows and fiery reds as a direct consequence of painting from his personal environment, we can also extrapolate that the tenor of his light is a symbolic expression of New Zealand’s conservatism and remoteness from the vitality of late 1950s and early 1960s modernism, which he had experienced while living abroad. Europe left a lasting impression — he was deeply affected by European artists such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall. We see an expression of joy and optimism in the artist’s work, like that of Chagall and Matisse. And we recognise Picasso’s foreboding messages of warning and concern for humanity. For Hanly it was local issues, such as the French testing of nuclear weapons in the Pacific and the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior, South African apartheid and the Springbok tour. Moreover, we see the influence of Picasso’s and Matisse’s recurring use of the human form — specifically the female form.

Hanly liked to paint women; so much so that in 1988 the artist exhibited a survey of his own oeuvre of the female form under the title Women by Hanly. The exhibition was a self-reflective examination of the treatment and role of women in his own work. It comprised artworks from eight different series he had created between the years 1959 to 1988. However, regardless of the exhibition’s title, this was not a show about women per se; rather, the female form functioned as both a metaphorical signifier and a formal device for pictorial exploration.

The painting featured in this catalogue, Torso P (1978), comes from a body of work Hanly referred to as his Torso series. In the artist’s own words, while these works are “emotional and painterly responses to some memorable torsos … [they] are mainly reflex gesture paintings concurrent with my intention to make works with the freest of techniques resulting in a direct and passionate visual statement.” Moreover, they are “women I have known but not necessarily biblically – not high head stuff more heart to heart.”1

Throughout the history of art, images of women as allegories have changed to reflect shifts in social and cultural values. Hanly’s Torso P is allegorically a painting about human desire and all its complexities, but the body is also a technical device for the artist to explore the limits of his medium, for sheer visual pleasure. For the artist, the gratification comes through the act of making; for the viewer, gratification is in the encounter –the act of looking at the visual interplay of line, colour and form dancing across the painting.

Religion and Life 1935 oil on canvas signed A. Lois White in brushpoint lower right 990 × 737mm

EST $150,000 — $300,000

PROVENANCE

Collection of Terry Stringer and Tim McWhannell. Acquired directly from the artist c1975.

EXHIBITIONS

To Suit a Bishop, The Suter Art Gallery, Nelson, 13 July–18 August 2013; Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Christchurch, 4 April–4 June 1995; By the Waters of Babylon: The Art of A. Lois White, Auckland City Art Gallery, Auckland, 9 March–8 May 1994, Auckland Society of Arts exhibition, Auckland, 1935.

LITERATURE

Nicola Green, By the Waters of Babylon: The Art of A. Lois White (Auckland: Auckland City Art Gallery, 1993), 39.