Ans Westra Private Collection
19 Gover Street, New Plymouth, Taranaki
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Ans Westra Private Collection
Gover St Gallery, New Plymouth
8th January - 8th February 2024
The Gallery is open Monday - Saturday 10 - 4pm and Sundays 12 - 4pm
Ans Westra was an avid collector and supporter of New Zealand artists. This exhibition is some of the varied work she collected throughout her career for her own personal collection
Anna Jacoba Westra CNZM (28 April 1936 – 26 February 2023), known as Ans Westra, was a Dutch-born New Zealand photographer, well known for her depictions of Māori life in the 20th century. Her prominence as an artist was amplified by her controversial 1964 children's book Washday at the Pa.
Westra had her first photographs published in 1960 - two covers for Te Ao Hou, a magazine published by the Department of Maori Affairs. In 1962 she began working as a full time freelance photographer. Much of her work was for Te Ao Hou and the School Publications branch of the Department of Education.
In 1998 Westra was awarded the Companion of the Order of New Zealand Merit for services to photography; in 2007 she became an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Icon artist; and in 2015 she received an honorary doctorate from Massey University in recognition of her long-standing contribution to New Zealand’s visual culture.
A critical survey of her work was published as Handboek: Ans Westra photographs in 2004, and in 2006 she was the subject of the documentary film Ans Westra: Private journeys/public thoughts. A museum dedicated to her work was established in Wellington in association with the dealer gallery Suite in 2016.
Ans Westra’s black-and-white negatives are held by the Alexander Turnbull Library and Te Papa has a collection of some 10,000 of her work prints.
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