“The New Photography”, is an exhibition and book of New Zealand’s photographer pioneers of the 1960s and 1970s.
Ans Westra (b.1936)
Ans Westra was born in Leiden, the Netherlands in 1936. She gained a diploma in teaching arts and crafts in 1957 and came to New Zealand in the same year. She began working as a full-time freelance photographer from 1962. She became known for her images of Maori, which were published in the Department of Maori Affairs magazine Te Ao Hou and in school publications produced by the Department of Education. It was a School Bulletin publication, Washday at the Pa, that propelled her to national attention in 1964 when it was controversially withdrawn from distribution because of claims that it stereotypically presented Maori as living in rural poverty. Her substantial book Maori was published in 1967 after she went to live in the Netherlands with her first child from 1965 to 1969.
When she returned to New Zealand Westra worked on a project supported by the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council of New Zealand to photograph the people of this country, published as Notes on the Country I Live In (1972). In 1985 she produced Whaiora: The pursuit of life as a completely new update on the earlier Maori. Besides her many children’s books, other major publications include Wellington: City Alive (1976), The Crescent Moon: The Asian face of Islam in New Zealand (2009), and Nga Tau ki Muri – Our Future (2013), on the human-altered landscape.
In 2004 Handboek: Ans Westra photographs was published as a critical survey of her work, and in 2006 she was the subject of the documentary film Ans Westra: Private journeys/ public thoughts. A museum dedicated to her work was established in Wellington in association with the dealer gallery Suite in 2016. Her negatives are held by the Alexander Turnbull Library and Te Papa Tongarewa, the Museum of New Zealand has a collection of around 10,000 of her work prints.
From Athol McCredie (Ed.), The New Photography, Te Papa Press, Wellington, New Zealand, 2019.
The Exhibition:
The New Photography – Life in the 60s and 70s.
until October 13.
Te Papa Tongarewa The Museum of New Zealand Toi Art Level 4
55 Cable Street
Wellington, New Zealand
https://www.tepapa.govt.nz/visit/exhibitions/toi-art/new-photography-life-60s-and-70s
The book accompanies the exhibition :
The New Photography, Te Papa Press. Publication date: June 2019. Hardback 22x27cm, 216 pages ISBN: 978-0-9951031-9-1. RRP $NZ70.00.
Buy the book here : https://www.tepapastore.co.nz/collections/te-papa-press/products/the-new-photography-new-zealand-s-first-generation-contemporary-photographers
