Ann Verdcourt

Ann Verdcourt is a New Zealand artist, born in 1934 in Luton, England. She emigrated to New Zealand with her husband, ceramic artist John Lawrence, in 1965.

Education

Verdcourt studied at the Luton School of Art from 1948 to 1952 and completed a NDD Diploma (sculpture and Ceramics) at the Hornsey School of Art in London in 1955.[1]

Career

Verdcourt has been working with clay since the 1950s. Her work references many other artists and art movements, drawing from her extensive knowledge of art history. In her work one can find allusions to anything from Diego Velázquez, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani and Constantin Brâncuși to the famous earthenware depiction of the Venus of Willendorf.

In 1992 she was commissioned to produce work for the Treasures of the Underworld exhibition that formed part of the New Zealand Pavilion at the Seville Expo '92. She said of her work:

My brief was to make something about Columbus, something that would appeal to a wide range of people and be understood without the use of words. After much hesitation and after reading a great many books, I decided the only way I could tackle the subject was by treating it as an unfolding story of the "first Voyage".[2]

A major exhibition of Verdcourt's work, Ceramics: Ann Verdcourt - a survey was jointly developed by Te Manawa, Palmerston North and the Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui in 2010 and toured to other North Island galleries. A version of the exhibition, titled Ann Verdcourt: Still Lives 1980 – 2007 was shown at Objectspace in Auckland in 2011.[3]

Verdcourt has work in the collections of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington; the Auckland War Memorial Museum, Auckland; Te Manawa, Palmerston North; Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui; the James Wallace Collection, Auckland; Hawke's Bay Museum, Napier; and The Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt.

References

  1. ↑ Schamroth, Helen (1998). 100 New Zealand Craft Artists. Auckland: Random House. pp. np. ISBN 9781869620363.
  2. ↑ Treasures of the Underworld: the catalogue of the New Zealand Tour of the exhibition by 14 New Zealand ceramic and glass artists, which was one of the major highlights of the New Zealand Pavilion of World Expo in Seville, Spain 12 April - 20 October 1992, Wellington: Museum of New Zealand, 1993, ISBN 0-909010-02-1
  3. ↑ "The Big Idea". The Big Idea. The Big Idea Trust. 5 October 2011. Retrieved 2 December 2014.

Further reading


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