Artwork Information

Among the exodus in the early years of the twentieth century of talented young artists from New Zealand in search of experience abroad was Maud Sherwood, a pupil of James Nairn at Wellington Technical College, who studied in Paris in 1912-13 on a scholarship from the South Kensington School of Art. Girl in the Boat, with its languid model floating in a limpid, shimmering haze of sunlight and water, was painted a decade later. Sherwood's fine draughtsmanship, sense of design and assured handling of watercolour, enhance the poetic qualities of the image. The motif of a woman in a rowing boat was one that she returned to throughout 1921-22 while living in Sydney and making sketching excursions to local beaches with female acquaintances who posed for her. The remarkable serenity of this vision, the epitome of a summer idyll, seems poignant in the light of the emotionally fraught circumstances under which the artist was working at the time. In late 1921 she had separated from her husband after a considerable legal battle, and lack of money temporarily threatened her artistic career. Like her contemporaries Frances Hodgkins and Grace Joel, Sherwood never returned permanently to New Zealand. After a second extended European sojourn of 1926-33, she remained in Australia where she received widespread acclaim and numerous awards and is represented in several major institutions. (from The Guide, 2001)