Cass, by Rita Angus

Cass is an oil painting created by the New Zealand artist Rita Angus in 1936.^[1]

Background

In May 1936, Rita Angus took the three-hour train journey from Christchurch to the Canterbury College Mountain Biological Station^[2] at Cass to spend a few days working in the landscape. She was accompanied by painters Louise Henderson and Julia Scarvell.^[3] Angus chose as one of her subjects the small railway station at Cass which had been established in 1910 when the Midland Railway line had been built^[4] to cut a day from the journey across the Southern Alps.^[5] On her return to Christchurch, Angus painted Cass in her studio at 97 Cambridge Terrace from studies done on site during the trip. These included Mountains Cass.^[6] The finished painting was signed Rita Cook, her married name at the time, on the lower right of the canvas.^[7] Angus kept the painting although she occasionally lent it to friends including the composer Douglas Lilburn and also Bill Sutton. When it was purchased by the Robert McDougall Art Gallery, now the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, in 1955 it was hanging in Bill Sutton's house.^[8]

History

Since its purchase, the Gallery has shown Cass regularly and has taken a particular interest in collecting and exhibiting materials associated with it. These include Julian Dashper's painting, Cass 1986,^[9] Peter Peryer's 2004 photo Cass,^[10] and the 2012 exhibition Cass curated by Christchurch artist Andre Hemer.^[11]

Cass was voted New Zealand's greatest painting in a 2006 poll on the Television New Zealand programme Frontseat. The runners-up were works by Colin McCahon, W D Hammond, Grahame Sydney, Robin White, and Petrus Van der Velden.^[12][13]

In 2022 Cass was offered for sale in an edition of 12 NFTs by the New Zealand company Glorious.^[14] The NFT in the edition reserved for auction was sold by the International Art Centre on 17 March 2022 for $13,085.^[15]

Selected exhibitions that included Cass

1937 Canterbury Society of Arts Annual Exhibition^[16] This was the first time Cass was exhibited publicly.

1940 Centennial Exhibition of New Zealand Art.^[17] Cass was illustrated in the catalogue as plate 63.^[18] Over the 1939/40 Summer the Centennial Exhibition was visited by 2,870,995 people.^[19]

1982 Rita Angus National Art Gallery (now Te Papa Tongarewa) This exhibition curated by Ron Brownson, Anne Kirker and Janet Paul toured New Zealand.^[20] Brownson noted in his essay, ‘The name Cass printed on the station anchors all representation to physical surface. The place is labelled as on a map and determines one’s initial recognition of the picture.’^[21]

1991 Pacific Parallels: artists and the landscape in New Zealand, The New Zealand-United States Art Foundation and the San Diego Museum of Art. Curated by Charles Eldredge, this exhibition toured to seven venues in the United States. In Eldredge's discussion of Rita Angus he places Cass alongside the work of American painter Grant Wood noting, ‘the telling juxtaposition of present-day subjects and activities with the land’s traditions (alpine or agrarian) bespeaks a similar celebration of time and history.’^[22]

2008 Rita Angus: Life and Vision Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Curated by William McAloon and Jill Trevelyan^[23] it toured to the metropolitan centres in New Zealand. Peter Vangioni's essay on the Cass works notes ‘Cass remains an unromanticised vision of the landscape – a focus on what makes the region unique.’

2021 Rita Angus: New Zealand Modernist He Ringatoi Hou o Aotearoa curated by Jill Trevelyan and Adrian Locke. This exhibition of more than 70 works was developed by the Royal Academy of Arts, London in partnership with Te Papa Tongarewa. Timed to mark 50 years after Angus's death, the exhibition was planned to be the first to show her work beyond New Zealand. The London presentation was cancelled owing to Covid restrictions^[24] although the exhibition at Te Papa went ahead. A scaled-down version toured regionally in New Zealand.^[25]

References