Portrait of a Young Woman ; Olivia Spencer-Bower; c. 1940s; 2024.006
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New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pūkenga Whakaata
Olivia Spencer-Bower studied at Canterbury College School of Art and started exhibiting her work around 1926 at the Canterbury School of Art Annual Exhibition. In 1929 she went to study at the Slade School of Art in England and returned to New Zealand in 1931. Around this time, she became involved with The Group, a collection of artists who reacted against the way the Canterbury Society of Arts catered for popular taste and excluded younger, more adventurous painters. In 1943 she went to Elam where she studied under Lois White, John Weeks, and A. J. C. Fisher – it was during this time she started painting portraits. It seems most likely that Portrait of a Young Woman was painted during her time at Elam. She painted several other portraits in oil paint during this time that have the same downward gaze and similar treatment of background, including the work David Galbraith, (1946) now in the collection of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Verna Adam remarks, “I like the slightly melancholy air to this young girl – in her pinafore dress – very fashionable around the 1960s.”
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Details
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Title
Portrait of a Young Woman ; Olivia Spencer-Bower; c. 1940s; 2024.006
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Maker
Olivia Spencer-Bower
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Date made
c. 1940s
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Additional information
Oil on canvas, 640 x 545 mm
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Rights
All rights reserved
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Location
Shed 11, Queens Wharf, Wellington Waterfront
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New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pūkenga Whakaata
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Text adapted with permission from Te Papa and Digital NZ
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