Rita Angus (1908–1970)

1908

Henrietta Catherine Angus was born in Hastings on 12 March 1908, the eldest of seven children of William McKenzie Angus and his wife Ethel Violet Angus (née Crabtree).

1927–29

Angus moved to Ōtautahi Christchurch in February 1927, to study at the Canterbury College School of Art.

1930

On 13 June she married fellow artist Alfred Cook. They travelled to Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland to study at the Elam School of Art.

1931–32

Angus returned to Ōtautahi Christchurch. She continued to study part-time while pursuing her interest in modern art. In the winter of 1932 she and Alfred Cook spent several weeks in Ahuriri Napier, where they sketched the ruins of the recent Hawke’s Bay earthquake.

1934

During the winter months Angus was very ill with a faulty heart valve. After her recovery she and her husband decided to separate. Later in the year she began to earn her living as a commercial artist.

1936–37
In May 1936, Angus spent ten days sketching at Cass, in the Canterbury back country, with her friends Louise Henderson and Julia Scarvell. She began work as a fashion illustrator at Ballantynes department store - later saying that this job made her feel ill because it stopped her from painting.

1938
In February Angus' friends Leo Bensemann and Lawrence Baigent moved into the flat adjacent to hers. She and Bensemann shared models and painted each other.

1939
Angus spent several months in Wānaka, staying with her friend Marjorie Marshall. Back in Ōtautahi Christchurch, she exhibited watercolour paintings of Central Otago. In this year her divorce from Alfred Cook became official.

1941–42
Angus was a pacifist. To avoid war work, she picked tobacco at Pangatōtara. In July she moved to Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington to design toys for a pacifist organisation.

Angus met the young composer Douglas Lilburn in late 1941. When he returned to Ōtautahi Christchurch, she followed soon afterwards. Angus conceived a child with Lilburn in late October, but suffered a miscarriage in late January 1942.

1944
In October Angus appeared before the Industrial Manpower Appeal Committee, after refusing factory work to support the war effort. Her statement said:

Angus's case was dismissed. She was ordered to report for work, but continued to ignore this.

1947–48
Her work was featured in an article in the Year Book of the Arts in New Zealand. She described her aims as a painter:

After seventeen years of signing her paintings ‘Rita Cook’, she changed her signature to ‘Rita Angus’.

1949
Angus was in poor health. In October she was found wandering the streets, disorientated, and taken to Sunnyside Mental Hospital for assessment.

She responded quickly to treatment and was released into her family’s care nearly two months later.

1950–51
Angus spent much of the year recuperating at her parents' house in Waikanae. She painted watercolour sketches of plants in their garden, and completed this luminous painting of waterlilies.

1955
After starting the year in Mangonui, Angus moved to Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington in late 1955. She bought a cottage in the city suburb of Thorndon.

1957-58
In 1957 Angus had her first solo exhibition. In 1958 she was awarded a fellowship that enabled her to travel overseas for the first time. She spent a year studying art in England and Europe.

1965–67
During the winter Angus became fascinated by the night sky, and began to sketch and paint the phases of the moon. In this and the following years she turned down invitations to exhibit in dealer galleries, preferring to retain complete independence.

1968
Ill-health took a toll, but Angus continued to complete major works. Late in the year, with her friend Juliet Peter, she began to make weekly sketching expeditions to the local Bolton Street cemetery. The cemetery was being razed to make room for a new motorway.

1970
Angus died from cancer in Wellington Hospital on 25 January.