News

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…

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…

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…