Talk: Artistic immigrants in NZ

When Parisian Louise Henderson emigrated to Aotearoa in 1925, she quickly established herself as a central figure in the local art scene. Henderson was by far the only successful foreign artist in this country, as art historian Leonard Bell illustrates beautifully in his 2017 book Strangers Arrive: Emigrés and the Arts in New Zealand, 1930-1980.

In this richly illustrated talk, Bell will introduce us to an extraordinary group of artistic refugees whose European modernism radically reshaped New Zealand art and culture, and shine a light on how the arrival of these displaced foreigners intersect with the burgeoning nationalist movement in the arts in New Zealand.

About Leonard Bell

Leonard (or Len) Bell is associate professor of art history at the University of Auckland. His writings on cross-cultural interactions and representations and the work of travelling, migrant and refugee artists and photographers have been published in New Zealand, Britain, the United States, Australia, Germany and the Czech Republic. He is author of Marti Friedlander (Auckland University Press, 2009), Colonial Constructs: European Images of Maori 1840–1914 (Auckland University Press, 1992), In Transit: Questions of Home and Belonging in New Zealand Art (Victoria University Press, 2007) and more.

Image credit: 
Frank Hofmann, Helen Shaw, 1952. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, gift of the artist, 1986.