To celebrate International Museums Day, on May 18, Whangarei Art Museum is delighted to announce an important new gift from London to the Art Museum Taonga collection.

To celebrate International Museums Day, on May 18, Whangarei Art Museum is delighted to announce an important new gift from London to the Art Museum Taonga collection.

Renowned London-based New Zealand portrait artist Susan Wilson has gifted her celebrated painting of Te Tai Tokerau kuia Rahera Windsor to the Whangarei Art Museum Te Whare Taonga O Whangarei this month. This painting features in the recent publication 'New Zealand Portraits' by Richard Wolfe (Penguin 2008).

The artist says “I am so delighted to send the painting of Rahera back (to her home) to you. The work does have a real sense of presence, and I will miss her but I am sure this is very much the right thing to do" Susan Wilson 29 April 2010. 

Rahera Honi Heta was born in Pupuke Northland in 1925 and married John Windsor in 1951 moving to London where she became a founding member of Ngati Ranana the Maori cultural group which was to become world famous. She was a friend of Sir Maui Pomare, Inia Te Wiata and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. Rahera was a member and past president of the Te Kauri Maori Women’s League; the War Graves Commission; the Victoria League; The Royal British Legion and an Honorary Member of the NZ Society in London. She was a touchstone for Maori visiting the UK for decades and travelled many times throughout Europe with Ngati Ranana. In the year of her portrait by Susan Wilson the group were flown by Air NZ to Toulouse to bless the new Airbus aircraft and only days before she died on 3 May she was singing the hymn Whakaaria Mai at Westminster Cathedral for the annual ANZAC celebrations.

She had raised funds for a memorial headstone for Guide Maggie Papakura, the first Maori to study at Oxford in 1912. Rahera Windsor spent a life caring for others and preserving Maori culture at the heart of the Commonwealth for more than 50 years.

Whangarei resident and arts supporter Colin Edwards has very generously offered to courier the painting back with him from London next month on Emirates Airlines where she will travel Business Class and be welcomed by art museum representatives at Auckland Airport. Descendants of Rahera will be welcome to private viewings prior to formal unveiling and blessing of the taonga ( in an event yet to be announced) to coincide with Matariki celebrations in Northland.

Like the return 'home' of Charles F. Goldie's 'Harata Rewiri Tarapata' from the London High Commission In 2002 (after 40 years away) this will be a special event to honour a notable kuia of Te Tai Tokerau at the Whangarei Art Museum. The painting will be on display late June.

The Whangarei Art Museum is grateful to the artist Susan Wilson for her generous gift and to Colin Edwards for making the freight arrangements possible.

Scott Pothan
Director

For further information please contact the art museum

whangareiartmuseum@wdc.govt.nz