The Timaru artist behind the famous portrait
1911–2005
Artist
At Aigantighe Art Gallery, works by Betty Curnow sit within the public collection alongside four small Colin McCahon paintings that she gave to Timaru in 1999.
It is a useful place to begin because Betty is often remembered primarily as the woman seated in Rita Angus’s celebrated Portrait of Betty Curnow. She was also an artist in her own right, whose painting, printmaking, friendships, records and gifts connected South Canterbury with the development of modern New Zealand art.
Betty was born on 31 October 1911. Auckland Art Gallery lists her birthplace broadly as Geraldine, Timaru or the Canterbury region, while other catalogues simply give Timaru. Family research records that she grew up at Clandon in Grey Road, Timaru, attended Waimataitai School, Sacred Heart and Craighead, and received art tuition from Albert James Rae during the late 1920s. The certified birth record held within the Curnow family collection at the National Library should settle the remaining birthplace and name questions.
Her mother, Daisy Le Cren, painted regularly, giving Betty an early example of a woman sustaining an artistic practice within family life. Betty’s South Canterbury upbringing remained important to her, and later works held by Aigantighe include Sheep Station I, Mackenzie Country and They Hold Him, Mt Cook. The titles demonstrate that she continued returning to inland South Canterbury as an artistic subject.
In 1936, Betty married poet Allen Curnow in Timaru and moved to Christchurch. There she became part of the artistic and literary circles associated with The Group and the Caxton Press. Her friendships included Rita Angus, Louise Henderson, Doris Lusk, Evelyn Page, Leo Bensemann and other significant artists and writers. Christchurch Art Gallery describes Betty as an important figure at the meeting point of these artistic and literary networks.
Rita Angus began studies for her portrait of Betty after staying with the Curnow family. The completed 1942 painting places Betty at the centre of objects representing family, art and personal history. Louise Henderson painted a contrasting portrait in 1954, presenting Betty as an independently minded modern woman. These portraits are important, but they should not be allowed to reduce Betty to someone whom other artists found interesting.
After moving to Auckland in 1951, Betty developed an increasingly active printmaking practice. Auckland Art Gallery records that her most productive period came during the 1950s and 1960s, when she exhibited frequently throughout New Zealand and in Australia, with solo exhibitions in Melbourne, Sydney and London. She worked experimentally with relief printing, etching and other processes, sometimes adapting ordinary domestic equipment as part of her printmaking practice.
Betty also preserved evidence of the world in which she worked. Her papers at the National Library include annotated photograph albums, exhibition records, correspondence, notes about Rita Angus and material relating to the two famous portraits. These records help later researchers understand the relationships and conversations around mid-century New Zealand art.
In 1999, Betty gave Aigantighe four panels from McCahon’s 1976 Landscape Panels in Memory of Daisy Le Cren. McCahon had created the wider series in memory of Betty’s mother. Betty’s gift brought part of that family and artistic relationship back to the place in which both women had strong roots.
Betty died on 24 September 2005. Her contribution was not simply that she knew famous artists or appeared in a famous portrait. She created and exhibited her own work, participated in the networks through which modern art developed, preserved firsthand evidence of those networks and returned important art to Timaru’s public collection.
Read the WuHoo stories
Remembering Betty Curnow: A Timaru Connection to Modern New Zealand Art
Betty Curnow: Her Connection to Henry Le Cren
Sources
Auckland Art Gallery: Betty Curnow
Confirms her birth and death dates and identifies works and archival material held by the gallery.
Auckland Art Gallery: Ben Curnow on Betty Curnow
Supports her importance as an artist and printmaker, her active exhibiting years and her place within Auckland modernism.
National Library: Material relating to Betty Curnow’s life and works
Identifies her albums, notes, official documents, photographs, exhibition material and surviving fabric from the Angus portrait.
Christchurch Art Gallery: Louise Henderson’s Portrait of Betty Curnow
Supports the 1954 portrait and Betty’s representation as a modern, independent woman.
Aigantighe Art Gallery: Colin McCahon
Confirms that Betty grew up in Timaru and gave four memorial paintings to Aigantighe in 1999.
Colin McCahon Online Catalogue: Landscape Panels in Memory of Daisy Le Cren
Confirms the title, date, four panels, accession numbers and Betty’s 1999 gift.
Nomination of Betty Curnow for the Timaru District Hall of Fame, 2025
Provides a family-supported synthesis of Betty’s life, Timaru connection, exhibitions and collection history. It remains a research compilation rather than independent proof.