The Road to Little Sark

The promise of her unfulfilled potential and the tragedy of her premature death in Egypt created a sure audience for the work of young expatriate painter Rhona Haszard, when her widower, Leslie Greener, organised a post-humous touring exhibition in New Zealand in 1933. Twelve years earlier, as an exemplary student of Archibald Nicholl and Richard Wallwork at the Canterbury College School of Art, Haszard evolved a decorative, modernist style which became more experimental and sophisticated after she was exposed to modern European art movements in Paris. Her painting Sardine Fleet, Brittany, was hung in the Paris Salon of 1927, following the precedent of other expatriate New Zealand women artists such as Frances Hodgkins, Grace Joel and Maud Sherwood. In 1928 she moved to Alexandria, Egypt, where Greener had accepted a teaching position and in 1930 she exhibited new oils and linocuts both there and in London, with a group of contemporary British artists. Painted the year preceding her death, and considered one of her most accomplished works, The Road to Little Sark exemplifies Haszard's post-Impressionist method of laying down high-keyed colour in a mosaic of small strokes, which articulate the rocky foundations of the landscape and create a richly textured surface. The verticality of the image emphasises the precipitous location, and leads the eye down a sunlit road to an expansive view of the ocean. (from The Guide, 2001)

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