Whanganui artist Edith Collier (1885-1964) is now recognised as one of the earliest pioneers of modernism in Aotearoa New Zealand. After studying at the Wanganui Technical School of Art and Design, she headed to London, England in 1913 to further her art studies. Influenced and inspired by contemporary European art, her teachers Margaret Preston and Frances Hodgkins, and her group of like-minded artist friends there she produced her most avant-garde modernist works.

Curator Jennifer Taylor says “This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to look at a largely unseen aspect of her practice—the work she produced after her return home from Europe (as most exhibitions have focused on the work she produced in Europe). It also is the first time that we have identified her landscape scenes, linking them with each of the family farms, and opens up a better understanding of her relationships with her siblings—who and where she spent the most time after her return from Europe.”

In 1922 Collier returned home to Whanganui and continued to paint and exhibit. Unfortunately, the conservatism of Aotearoa, so remote from exposure to the latest European art developments, combined with her fresh modernist aesthetic, meant her work was met with incomprehension. While Collier’s father Henry has been popularly vilified after he burned some of her paintings when his high hopes of her celebrated return were dashed, he was in fact a generous and successful businessman who financially supported his eldest daughter for an astonishing period of nearly nine years in Europe.

Henry Collier emigrated from Manchester, England in 1860. Henry and his brother Herbert were musicians and music teachers and established a music importing business, H. Collier & Co, with premises in Whanganui, Hāwera, Whakaahurangi Stratford, Ngāmotu New Plymouth and Aorangi Feilding. Henry married his pupil Eliza Catherine Parkes and they had 10 children. Henry’s focus shifted to farming and he became a substantial landowner with properties within the Taranaki, Whanganui and Rangitīkei regions. Unusually for the time, after his death in 1935, Henry Collier’s estate was divided among his daughters as well as his sons, and much of the land remains in family hands today.

Following on from the Sarjeant Gallery’s 2024-2025 exhibition Edith Collier: Early New Zealand Modernist, which is currently touring Aotearoa, Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery is delighted to bring to light this group of works focusing on landscapes Collier produced after her return home while staying with her siblings at four of the family properties; Uplands, Maungaraupi, Wakarua and Mataitira. Providing a glimpse beyond her most iconic and well-known works, and drawn from the Edith Collier Trust, Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery and family collections, this show includes rarely seen examples of her continued artistic experimentation.