Michael Heath’s 2007 documentary Edith Collier: A Light Among Shadows traces the life and work of Whanganui-born painter Edith Collier, whose contribution to early modernism in Aotearoa New Zealand was long overlooked.

Collier left Aotearoa in her late 20s to study art in London, where her work developed rapidly and she experimented with modernist approaches alongside fellow expatriate Frances Hodgkins. Following the First World War, she returned to Whanganui and a life shaped increasingly by family responsibilities. Her work, however, was not always understood or accepted at home; most notoriously, her father destroyed some of her nude paintings by burning them.

Through interviews with Collier’s family and biographer, alongside archival material and images of her paintings, Heath builds a portrait of an artist whose career was constrained just as her work was becoming increasingly assured and distinctive. The documentary places particular emphasis on both the freedom Collier found overseas and the pressures she encountered after returning to Aotearoa.

At once biographical and art historical, Edith Collier: A Light Among Shadows offers an accessible introduction to Collier’s life while reconsidering the significance of an artist whose reputation has continued to grow long after her death.