Portrait of Miss Rita Richardson

Helen Stewart was a trailblazing New Zealand artist of the 1930s and 40s who helped introduce audiences to modern art on both sides of the Tasman. Born in Wellington in 1900, Stewart lived in Sydney from 1928 to 1946 and travelled extensively, training in Paris at the Académie Colarossi, Académie de la Grande Chaumière andAndré Lhote's atelier; and the Sydney Art School. Active in numerous contemporary art groups during this period, she exhibited widely, most notably at the Macquarie Galleries where her paintings were praised for their freshness and vibrant portrayal of fashionable young women. Portrait of Miss Rita Richardson was reproduced in the Sydney Morning Herald in May 1939 and typifies the stylishly dressed figure’s power as a symbol of modernity. Working across portraiture, landscape painting, and still life, Stewart employed a range of modernist techniques with facility and vigour. However, she faced a cool reception on her return home to New Zealand in 1946, and the indignity of having her work declined for exhibition by the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts in Wellington. These setbacks caused Stewart to find alternative venues to show her work which is today celebrated for its sophisticated sense of design, abstract and weighty treatment of form, and audacious colour combinations.

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