Gretchen Albrecht is one of this Aotearoa New Zealand’s preeminent abstract painters. Her artworks combine formal, historical and ephemeral qualities, and her sensuous colour palette and stained canvases act as a counterpoint for rhythmic patterns of gestural movement, form and scale. Albrecht has exhibited extensively in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally for over five decades and her work is held in major public collections, including Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki.
Dr Leonard Bell is an independent art and cultural historian who taught art history at the University of Auckland. Among other works, he is author of Colonial Constructs: European Images of Maori 1840–1914 (1992), Marti Friedlander (2009), Strangers Arrive: Emigrés and the Arts in New Zealand, 1930–1980 (2017) and Marti Friedlander: Portraits of the Artists (2020). He has also written numerous book chapters and articles on the visual arts, both historical and contemporary. These have been published in New Zealand, Australia, Great Britain, USA, Czechia, Germany and Japan.
Image credits: Gretchen Albrecht, Golden Cloud, 1973, acrylic on canvas, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, purchased 1974 | Gretchen Albrecht, photo by Frank Schwere | Leonard Bell