Painting links art society to Aigantighe
From today to November 10, the South Canterbury Art Society will host its annual awards show at the Aigantighe Art Gallery.
Alongside this celebration of contemporary talent in the region, the gallery will be exhibiting The Dancer by Albert J Rae (b.1884-d.1971). This painting is a reminder of the long lineage of local artists to which those practicing today belong, and also, a reminder of the longstanding relationship between the art society and the Aigantighe – The Dancer was one of paintings gifted by the society in 1956 when the Aigantighe opened.
Rae was born in Dunedin, where he first studied art at the city’s School of Art and Design.
Like many young artists of this era, he travelled overseas to continue his studies. He attended several institutions in London and Glasgow from approximately 1915 to 1922, cultivating a great skill for printmaking while there.
Upon his return from Britain, he settled in Timaru, where he was granted a part-time teaching position at Timaru Boys’ High School. This eventuated into a fulltime position, and he remained there until his retirement in 1944.
While in this post, he taught many of South Canterbury’s most notable artists including the Aigantighe’s first director, Clifford Brunsden.
He continued his own practice alongside his teaching duties, and is recognised as one of the first (if not the first) people to use the mezzotint printing technique in New Zealand. This is a form of printmaking in which a metal plate is scraped and polished to varying degrees to give tonal range and clarity.
He was also a talented painter, as this portrait demonstrates. Following in the tradition of Edgar Degas, whose dancer paintings of the late 19th century are among the most famous of the impressionist era, Rae depicts a young ballerina.
Unlike Degas, he has approached this subject as a sitting portrait, allowing him to capture the seemingly surly attitude of this young woman, who gazes out of frame and slumps in her seat in this moment of repose.