Saturday 27 July
1pm| FREE
RSVP required
Still life painting is a genre that refuses to die. A humble genre concerned with the pictorial representation of inanimate objects often including jugs, still life painting can be an exercise in illusionism, or an opportunity to explore the sensual pleasures of the material world. For women, still life painting – a genre firmly rooted in the domestic realm – is a pictorial space that that reflects both the limitations and possibilities of their practice.
In this talk, Te Papa Curator Historical Art Rebecca Rice explores the still life paintings that inspired Paul Maseyk’s work, and the interplay between the painted jugs and those he created in response. Through this, one thing becomes clear: women artists really show off their jugs in this show.
Dr Rebecca Rice is Curator Historical Art at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. As a curator and art historian, she is dedicated to the study, interpretation and presentation of historical art in Aotearoa New Zealand. She co-curated the much-loved portrait wall in Toi Art at Te Papa, along with Hiahia Whenua: Landscape and Desire (2022) and Te Mata Kāwai Heke o Papa: Arranging Nature (2023). Rebecca has recently published Te Ata o Tū, The Shadow of Tūmatauenga: The New Zealand Wars Collections of Te Papa (2024) and Flora: Celebrating our Botanical World (2023). Her current research focusses on art in Aotearoa New Zealand in the 1890s, exploring more fully the relationship between artists working here and abroad, as well as the contribution of women to art.