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…
Author: Catherine Field-Dodgson
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, Kōwharawhara, Libertia and Nīkau’ (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…
Antarctic panels revealed
By Catherine Field-Dodgson and Michele Leggott Last month Michele reflected on Emily Harris’s missing 1906 sub-antarctic panel and wondered what it might look like: We can make some guesses about the size and content of Emily’s second panel of Antarctic flowers, to date unlocated. Given her predilection for symmetry we can guess the second panel Read More…
Antarctic Flowers 1906 at Puke Ariki
By Michele Leggott and Catherine Field-Dodgson, with research support from Runa Bhakta and Libby Baker Four tall spikes of ligusticum reach from the bottom of a rectangular panel towards the top of Emily Harris’s painting. The two largest have flower heads that resemble a carrot in flower, but with pink rather than white umbels and Read More…
Three celmisias and a white gentian: Emily Harris at the British Museum
By Michele Leggott and Catherine Field-Dodgson The reporter from the Nelson Evening Mail is more than usually enthusiastic about the work on show at Emily Harris’s studio in Nile St East. Under the heading ‘Some Exquisite Paintings’ the range and ambition of Emily’s latest project is described in detail: Miss Harris has undoubted talent in Read More…
Thomas Kirk at Te Papa: the Campbell Island flora
By Michele Leggott and Catherine Field-Dodgson 14 January 1890 The Colonial Government Steamship Hinemoa reaches Campbell Island with botanists Thomas Kirk and Frederick Chapman on board. The steamer has visited the Snares and the Auckland Islands, travelling ever further south into the brief sub-antarctic summer since leaving Bluff 8 January on her periodic tour of Read More…
Emily at the Nelson Philosophical Society
By Catherine Field-Dodgson Nestled amongst the collection of Emily Harris watercolours at the Turnbull Library in Wellington is a large painting of a weird plant with huge green leaves. Bearing more than a passing resemblance to an overgrown cabbage, or something out of The Day of the Triffids, it’s certainly not a commonly-seen plant in Read More…