A
forgotten masterpiece unearthed from a closet is
getting an extensive makeover before it goes on
display for the first time in 20 years.
The modernist painting by Auckland artist Lois White
was found incomplete, creased and water damaged in
White’s studio after she died in the 1980s. It was rolled
up in the back of a cupboard without a frame or stretcher.
Te Papa curator of modern art Chelsea Nichols said the
painting could have been in there for 50 years as White
painted it around 1935.
The Te Papa art conservation team is restoring the
4.5m by 1.5m painting. The mural, Palm Sunday, will
go on display in the ongoing New Visions New Zealand
exhibition from August 15 to the end of January.
The painting tells the story of Jesus’ procession into
Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. He is depicted as an ordinary
man as a sign of respect to his presence on Earth. He rides
a donkey, which is a symbol of peace.
Nichols said White is important in New Zealand’s art
history because her refined decorative style contrasted with
her staunch leftist beliefs.
She said one of the strange things about White is that
she was a very significant painter in the 1930s and 1940s
but was then forgotten for about 30 years as she was
considered ‘old fashioned’.
It wasn’t until she was rediscovered in the 1970s that
she got her first solo exhibition aged 74.
“She painted a lot of work that fought for worker’s rights
but with pacifist beliefs, she was quite radical at the time.”
Nichols says White painted eight murals throughout her
life but only two are still around. The rest have been lost or
destroyed in a fire.
Paintings conservator Linda Waters said the painting
was found in a terrible state but the biggest challenge was
its size. The mural is so large they had to build a stretcher
that can be bent in half to get around corners. It takes six
people to move it.
They had to source a special adhesive made from
Northern Hemisphere seaweed that has a matte finish to
glue down some of the curling, flaking paint.
White taught at the Elam Art School of the University of
Auckland for almost 40 years until her retirement in 1963.
A Te Ara biography on White states her sensitivity to
social issues, combined with interesting compositions
of people done in a highly decorative style, have made
her an unusual artist. Throughout her life she struggled to
reconcile two sides of her personality: the God-fearing
dutiful daughter and the creative artist.
Her most controversial painting, War Makers, painted
in 1937, is an example of the anti-war commentary she
concentrated on during these years. By the late 1930s
the war series was interspersed with religious and female
MASTERPIECE
HIDDEN
A huge, unfinished painting by Lois White, found in the back of a
cupboard after her death in 1984, is undergoing restoration at Te
Papa. Photo courtesy Te Papa.
symbols, portraiture and mural commissions. The female
allegories celebrated a female-centred sexuality.
The years from 1947 to 1951 marked White’s major
period of production.
She never married and for many years lived with her
mother, and sister, Gwen.
White was born in 1903 and died in 1984. The main
public holdings of her work are at the Auckland Art Gallery
and Te Papa.The painting tells the story of Jesus’ procession into Jerusalem on
Palm Sunday. Photo courtesy Te Papa.