The Noel & Margaret Dick Art Collection Wednesday, 12 June 2019 - 6:00 PM start
A Lois White - Winter's approach
Lot Details
A Lois White (1903-84) Winter's approach watercolour and pencil on paper inscribed with title (lower left), signed 'A. Lois White' (lower right) 27.5 x 21cm Provenance with Jonathan Grant Galleries (paper label to reverse) This work is the study for 'Winter's approach' 1939, oil on canvas, 65.3 x 49.5cm, Collection of Te Papa Tongarewa, Museum of New Zealand. Reference Nicola Green, By the Waters of Babylon, The Art of A. Lois White' (Auckland City Art Gallery 1993) no. 14., p. 46 (colour illustration) Winter is portrayed here as a predatory figure with sickly green skin and menacing talons. She emerges from the darkness of the trees to envelop the vulnerable flesh of ‘summer’. World War II was looming when A Lois White painted this work, which expresses a sense of anxiety about the evil that could overcome peace. Her religious and political allegories made her a major artistic figure in New Zealand from the 1930s to 1950s. She often combined the popular with the political – ‘winter’ here resembles the wicked queen from Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, released the previous year.
