Decisive Moments

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, 2 November 2019–8 March Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, 20 June–11 October curated by Felicity Milburn, Lara Strongman & Julia Waite

Louise Henderson: From Life

Towards the end of her life, Louise Henderson declared ‘I . . . think that the people who practise [art] should be devoted to it . . . to do good art, it’s a lifetime really.’¹ Louise Henderson: From Life, fittingly, devotes itself to a lifetime’s work by this determined, sometimes surprising and in recent years largely overlooked artist.

The title of both the exhibition and the accompanying publication is also fitting, not only because Henderson’s work almost always refers in some way to the world around her but also because certain key events in her life shaped important changes in her practice. The first of these was emigrating from her native France to this country in 1925 following her marriage to New Zealander Hubert Henderson. At her mother’s insistence Henderson had trained, not as an artist, as she wished to do, but in the decorative arts, principally embroidery. While this stood her in good stead both as a teacher and in her understanding of design principles, it was her move to New Zealand that gave her the opportunity to become a painter.