In 1938, Rita Angus quit her job as an illustrator for Ballantynes department store to focus on painting. She went to stay with her artist friend Marjorie Marshall in Wanaka, and the two women spent days sketching.
Central Otago, pictured here, was a revelation to Angus – a powerful landscape fit for the ambition of her paintings. She returned there many more times to paint.
Marshall was one of a number of close women friends who supported Angus through the late 1930s, when she often lacked a steady income or fixed address.
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