What's Happening

Endless Fascination brings together past and present, in a warm and intimate exhibition featuring three artists with connections to Canterbury: Daisy Le Cren (1879 – 1959), Betty Curnow (1911 – 2005), and Nadia Curnow (born 1962). 

Each of the artists represents a different epoch in the region’s cultural heritage. The art works on display range from watercolour to printmaking and contemporary painting, spanning more than a hundred years.

The relationship between past and present is the exhibition’s central theme. “I am interested in how art continues and resonates in different ways through the generations”, says independent curator and writer Ben Curnow, who has organised the show. “Without the past, we do not have a present — and at the same time, it is the present we are living in”, he says. The title “Endless Fascination” is meant to suggest a subjective continuity of artistic meanings and values over time.

Nadia Curnow’s painting “I Descend to You” (2024), which is a feature of the exhibition, encapsulates the poetic sense of this theme. The Timaru-based artist held a one-person exhibition at the Ashburton Art Gallery earlier this year, and her paintings are held in public and private collections in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Russia and Japan.

Betty Curnow was an instrumental figure for her generation, both in Christchurch and later in Auckland. Her portrait was painted by Rita Angus, Louise Henderson, and Doris Lusk. As a successful exhibiting artist her career peaked in the 1950s and 1960s, when she was working full-time in printmaking media. Another feature of the exhibition is Betty’s painting of Frederick and Evelyn Page’s house at Governors Bay, where she spent holidays in the 1940s.

The enigmatic Daisy Le Cren was the subject of a tribute in 16 parts by the artist Colin McCahon, now housed in the Aigantighe Art Gallery, which also has works by both Betty Curnow and Nadia Curnow in its permanent collection. Daisy Le Cren was the mother of Betty Curnow. Daisy’s work is being shown to the public for the first time in many years.

While each artist’s work is very different, there are parallels between them, including the relationship to one family and each artist having a sense of deep South Canterbury connections.

The exhibitions runs at Stoddart Cottage until 2 November.