By Michele Leggott and Catherine Field-Dodgson, with research support from Wayne Orchiston and Ian Cooper First there were Emily’s three small oil paintings of celestial events, each with a connection to Dr Frank Bett, her friend and neighbour in Nile St from around 1910. Bett owned the three paintings and after his death in 1957 Read More…
Author: Catherine Field-Dodgson
Emily Harris and the Tākaka Caves
By Jackie Cook So what does Emily Harris have to do with caves? From the 1890s to 1914, something of a vogue arose in Nelson for visiting caves. Four aspects of life in late nineteenth/early twentieth century colonial culture had intersected upon this rather unlikely spot. Taken in sequence, they help explain how an interest Read More…
The oldest document: a court summons 1831 or 1832
By Michele Leggott, with research support from Catherine Field-Dodgson Families keep the strangest things. For years now we have been looking at what we take to be the oldest document in Sarah Harris’s family history, a tattered and yellowing piece of paper pasted into the notebook that is full of intriguing items from the English Read More…
Happy birthday Emily Harris!
By Michele Leggott Thanks to the person who put three framed Emily Harris prints on TradeMe recently, we now have a set of Emily’s beautiful botanical paintings issued by the Turnbull Library in 1968. Our set is 2183 of an edition of 2500. The prints are in good condition and show Emily’s rendition of rangiora Read More…
Tainui trees north of Mokau
By Michele Leggott, with research support from Catherine Field-Dodgson I wasn’t dreaming. There really is a sign on the road north of Mokau and it says ‘Tainui Trees.’ We back up the car and Mark crosses the road where the sign is pointing. There he finds a signboard for Tainui Scenic Reserve, topped by a Read More…
The Narrowest of Escapes: Emily Harris’s legerdemain
By Jackie Cook What should I do with your strong, manly, spirited sketches, full of variety and glow? How could I possibly join them on to the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush, as produces little effect after much labour? Jane Austen, Letter to J. Read More…
Emily Harris at Te Papa Press 2025
By Michele Leggott and Catherine Field-Dodgson We are pleased to confirm that Te Papa Press of Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington will publish our Emily Harris book in 2025. Full-colour reproduction of Emily’s paintings and drawings will accompany a text that traces her art and writing across the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Our project restores the Read More…
Hector’s tree daisy: another Emily Harris oil
By Annabel Galpin In 2006 my mother Janet Briant was downsizing and moving to a retirement village in Whanganui. Before moving she went through the process of dividing many of her possessions between my sisters and me. Among these were several unframed artworks including two of Emily’s oils on strawboard, much in need of conservation. Read More…
A Glistening Web: Whakatū / Nelson 11-12 October 2023
By Catherine Field-Dodgson and Michele Leggott In mid-October, Michele and Catherine travelled to Whakatū / Nelson for a quick research trip, and to deliver the Nelson Historical Society’s 2023 James Jenkins Memorial lecture. Michele was accompanied by her friend Susan Davis. Mary Gavin, president of the Nelson Historical Society, and Yolanda Persico, the society’s secretary, Read More…
And this is my picture: a 1906 painting comes to Wellington
By Russell Briant And this is my picture. Or how we got our own Emily Harris, ‘Kiekie, Tī Ngahere, Nīkau, Mikoikoi and Neinei’ (1906) My name is Russell Briant and Emily Cumming Harris is my 3x great aunt. Those of you who have read this wonderful blog may know that the Briant connection with the Read More…