Art bite: Ben Curnow on Betty Curnow

Former Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and Lecturer in Art Theory, AUT, Ben Curnow gives an illustrate lecture on the untold story of his grandmother’s contribution to the development of modernism in Auckland.

Betty Curnow (1911–2005) – the artist, as opposed to the subject of an iconic portrait – is an untold story in the development of modernism in New Zealand. Beginning in 1930s and 1940s, her most remarkable work and most active period as an exhibiting artist came in the 1950s and 1960s, in Auckland, where she was involved at the forefront of a changing awareness about modern art and an expanding local art scene. During those years she exhibited frequently in all the major centres, up and down the country, and also number of times in Australia; she had solo exhibitions in Melbourne, Sydney, and London.  In Auckland she showed at New Vision Gallery and was closely associated with Kees Hos.