The week before last Rebecca Rice, Acting Head of Art at Te Papa, officially launched our book Groundwork: The art and writing of Emily Cumming Harris in a wonderful evening that brought Emily’s art and writing into the light again. Rebecca’s speech touched on many of the themes in our book and she has kindly Read More…
Author: Catherine Field-Dodgson
Out of the shadows: Groundwork launches at Te Papa in Wellington
Michele Leggott and Catherine Field-Dodgson Nine years of research and writing culminated last week in the cafe turned launch space at Te Papa in Wellington. More than 120 guests gathered to bring Groundwork: The Art and Writing of Emily Cumming Harris into the light of day. Just prior to the main event, Harris descendants and Read More…
Groundwork: The art and writing of Emily Cumming Harris
Coming to a bookshop near you 10 April 2025 and available from Te Papa Press here. RRP $60.
Emily Harris’s big paintings and their people
Michele Leggott and Catherine Field-Dodgson Why did Emily Harris produce so many large oil paintings in 1906? The question has been on our minds since first realising that the oils signed and dated in red at lower left or right are part of an exhibit Emily sent to the International Exhibition in Christchurch that year. Read More…
New Zealand Liliaceae, 1906
Catherine Field-Dodgson and Michele Leggott In January we received an intriguing email from archivist Katherine Pawley at the University of Auckland. ‘It just leapt out at me,’ she told us, indicating a link to a tall skinny painting by an unknown artist at Webb’s auction house in Auckland. As soon as we clicked on the Read More…
Very Unsettled: Sarah Harris Journal 1860
Michele Leggott and Catherine Field-Dodgson The envelope that Gretchen Briant inscribed ‘Grandmother’s letters’ contains more than typings of Sarah Harris’s early letters to her family in England. Twelve pages in Sarah’s hand have been folded into the envelope, not letters but journal notes from 1860, the year of the first Taranaki war. Some miscellaneous notes Read More…
Grandmother’s letters: Sarah Harris 1841 & 1843
Story and photos by Michele Leggott and Catherine Field-Dodgson The writing on the envelope says ‘Grandmother’s letters.’ The writer is Gretchen Briant and her grandmother is Sarah Harris. Inside the envelope, neatly folded, are four typed letters on foolscap, copies of letters written by Sarah from New Plymouth in 1841 and 1843. They describe the Read More…
Aunt Grace’s photos
Story and photos by Michele Leggott and Catherine Field-Dodgson The envelope is small, opening on its right side, with an inscription in black ink that reads: ‘Godfrey Briant from Aunt Grace.’ It was rediscovered a few months ago among family files at the home of Goff and Judith Briant in Marton. Hugh Godfrey Briant, known Read More…
A letter from Emily Harris, 1862
Story by Michele Leggott It is November 2024. Harris descendant Heather Jones hand-delivers Emma Hill’s scrapbook, the real thing, to a kitchen bench in Devonport. The scrapbook and an envelope of family letters and photos has made its way from Judith Briant in Marton to Heather in Clevedon to its latest destination in Auckland. In Read More…
Emma Hill’s scrapbook online
Story and photos by Michele Leggott and Catherine Field-Dodgson We present an addition to our Art and Writing section: This Fair Work: Emma Jane Hill Scrapbook 1826-1880. Browse the introduction below, then visit the feature to view the scrapbook’s contents. Introduction It is a mystery. A hardbound notebook, 204 x 160mm, many of its 160 Read More…