Whangarei Art Museum

Cursive Line - Adele Younghusband and a Circle of Friends

Exhibition Extras:
  • Education Kit (352 KB PDF)
    • Adele Younghusband - click to see larger view
    Beach Houses, Dargaville. Adele Younghusband - click to see larger view Beach Houses, Dargaville. Adele Younghusband

    15 October - 10th December, 2007

    Curated by Whangarei Art Museum Director Scott Pothan, the exhibition contains numerous works from the Whangarei Art Museum Permanent collection as well as works on loan from the Waikato Museum, Auckland City Art Gallery, Hocken Library, The New Dowse, The Waikato Trust and Ferner Gallery plus contextual works by artists from her circle.

    The restless quest to work as an artist throughout her extensive life, constantly experimenting in style and media, always refining and redefining her visual language make Adele Younghusband a significant figure in the history of New Zealand modernism in the 20th century. She was after all a woman born amid the "morass of Victorianism" but lived a life open to new ideas and challenge. Her work shows a complex body of work in which allegory, portraiture and decorative works all play a vital role, cubism and a later period of symbolist surrealism - all themes consistent with the and 'art deco' aesthetic of synthesized cubism - give an added dimension to her work.

    An altarpiece, previously believed lost, will feature in this exhibition, and will be blessed Rt Reverend Walter Turvey at the opening on Monday 15th October.


    This pioneer painter was one of the first to depart from orthodox landscape.  A well known exhibitor at the Auckland Society, who has always displayed a strong individual outlook and an expanding trend towards experiment.  For several years she exhibited powerfully designed canvases with a stress upon formal relationships of pattern and colour.

    - Arthur Hipwell, 1941

    Her Worship the Mayor, Pamela Peters will  formally open the exhibition following the blessing by Whangarei Art Museum Kaitiaki Te Warahi Hetaraka and Rt Reverend Walter Turvey  at be 5.30pm, Monday 15th October at Whangarei Art Museum, Rose Gardens, Water Street, Whangarei.

    This exhibition notice has been edited. The complete version which includes historical and biographical info about the artist can be downloaded in MS Word or PDF format in the Press Releases section »

     

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