Artwork Information

May Smith was a painter, engraver, and textile designer who introduced new ideas to the New Zealand art scene, influencing the development of modern art during the interwar period and beyond. Born in Simla, India, Smith took up painting in England during her convalescence from a series of hip operations. She returned to New Zealand in 1921 and attended the Elam School of Art where she studied engraving before returning to England to attend the Royal College of Art in London where she graduated with a diploma in engraving in 1931. During the Depression, Smith found it difficult to obtain work as an engraver and decided to focus on painting, inspired by the example of her friend Frances Hodgkins. With the outbreak of World War II, Smith returned to New Zealand in 1939.

At a 1940 Auckland Society of Arts exhibition, Smith exhibited some of the paintings that she had made in England. The White Horse was likely included in the homecoming show, which garnered a mix of shock and admiration. In the painting, large passages of smudgy pink and green are interrupted by a black fence, jagged slate roof, and sgraffito details which contrast the heavier areas of brushwork. The painting’s flatness and obvious flouting of perspectival convention signalled Smith’s interest in Post-Impressionism and British Primitivism.