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Rita Angus uncompromisingly stood
alone among her generation. Surrounded by secrecy even
after her death, at last her story can be told.
Lovely
RITA celebrates New Zealand painter Rita Angus.
She lived and worked at a time in New Zealand when to
be a full time artist was not only unusual, it was
hardly considered to be a serious occupation. Her paintings
were undervalued during her lifetime but appreciated
by a small, informed group of supporters including
the composer Douglas Lilburn, with whom she maintained
a life long close friendship.
Over 300 letters from Rita
to Douglas were in his possession when he died recently
and these form a moving and sometimes startling personal
commentary from the artist herself which illuminates
a lifetime of painting.
Though Angus died in 1970, filmmaker
Gaylene Preston has found a colourful collection of friends
and family who knew and loved Rita, while Angus biographer
Jill Trevelyan provides a fresh intelligence on the Rita
Angus life story. Young artists share enthusiasm for
her work and the audience is taken on the occasional
jaunt through an iconic work, such as 'Central Otago'
and 'Rutu'.
Loren Horsley reads Rita's letters
to Douglas and evokes young Rita on screen while Donogh
Rees reads Rita's Thorndon letters, as her glorious paintings
articulate this sensitive portrait of one woman's struggle
to illuminate her world.
In
an age when to us women born into greater freedom having
a family and a creative career is not unusual, it is
salutary to be reminded how hard this position we now
take for granted was fought for.
Rita Angus, this staunch, unbending, sometimes prickly,
dedicated woman gave us those lovely paintings. Our cultural
life is richer for having her with us once.
Lovely RITA celebrates that.
Produced and Directed by GAYLENE PRESTON
Cinematography ALUN BOLLINGER
Editor LALA ROLLS
Music PLAN9
Biographer JILL TREVELYAN
Rita Evocation by LOREN HORSLEY
Thorndon Rita letters read by DONOGH REES
A Gaylene Preston Production in association with NZ
On Air and TVNZ with assistance from The Fletcher Trust
and Mataura Licensing Trust , Eastern Southland Gallery,
the Douglas Lilburn Endowment Trust, Thorndon Trust and
the Rita Angus Estate.
Developed in association with the New Zealand Film Commission.
Sunday Star Times Revue
Oct 14th 2007
Lovely RITA
****
Gaylene Preston's documentary on artist Rita Angus hits
all the right notes: informative, visually compelling,
humorous and touching.
Angus's life and work is discussed and dissected by some
great onscreen talent including Sam Neill, artist Jaqueline
Fahey and Marti Friedlander.
A lively and loving look at one of our cultural icons.
(four stars)Angela Walker.
Rita Angus is one of New Zealand's outstanding 20th century
artists. A pioneer of modern painting who produced
such iconic landscapes as Cass, an image of an isolated
railway station in the Southern Alps, she also painted
a series of remarkable portraits and self-portraits.
Her style is instantly recognizable, characterized
by crisp, hard-edged form, stark lighting and brilliant
colour.
Born in Hastings in 1908, Rita grew up in Palmerston
North and studied at Canterbury College School of Art
during the late 1920s and early 1930s. Her marriage to
fellow artist Alfred Cook ended in divorce in 1934, and
she never remarried, living alone for most of her life.
By the late 1930s Angus had become a pacifist, and she
went to court in the following years to avoid being man-powered
into war work. Her pacifist beliefs found expression
in her 'Goddess' paintings such as Rutu, which offer
an idealized vision of the future in New Zealand, where
all races might live together in peace and harmony.
After twenty-seven years based in Christchurch, Rita
moved to Wellington in the mid-1950s. Settling in Sydney
Street West in Thorndon, she brought her visionary imagination
to the local landscape, painting works such as Boats,
Island Bay and Journey, Wellington. When the Bolton Street
cemetery was razed to make way for the new motorway,
she made her protest in a series of oils, including her
last completed work, Flight.
Rita died from cancer on 25 January 1970.
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