The Lakes (triptych)

Born and educated in France, Louise Henderson came from a family with strong artistic connections. Her father had been secretary to the sculptor Auguste Rodin and her grandfather was Under-Secretary to the Minister of Culture. She attended the School of Industrial Arts in Paris, studying embroidery and lace design, drawing, and the history of art and craft. In 1925 she married New Zealander Hubert Henderson, and from that time lived mostly in this country. An exotic figure in the arts community and a passionate advocate of all forms of art, Henderson worked as a teacher, painter, sculptor, designer and weaver of tapestries as well as completing commissions in mosaic and stained glass. She moved from Christchurch to Auckland in 1950 and soon afterwards she travelled to France to study with cubist artist Jean Metzinger. The cubist influence stayed in her work throughout the 1950s and she was a leading figure among Auckland artists who pursued a regional cubist style. After the death of her husband she was persuaded by Gallery director Peter Tomory to continue painting and a new lyricism and energy emerged in her work: '. . . the paint flowed . . . I mixed and poured my colours, then one day I looked at what I had done and I knew they were right'. The Lakes is from that period, part of a series she called Elements - Air and Water; it is a powerful work which oscillates between figuration and pure abstraction. (from The Guide, 2001)

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