Rita Angus / New Zealand

Growth

Growth  1968
oil on hardboard, 434 x 332 mm
Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Gift of Hans and Martha Lachmann, 1995
This artwork is featured in Te Papa's Collections Online

Rita Angus named this painting Growth, alluding to the natural world that inspired it. ‘I just wanted the feeling of something sprouting,’ she said. Against a grid, a series of flower-like shapes thrust upwards and burst open.
Growth, with its simple geometric forms, is one of Angus’s most abstract pictures. She painted it late in life, when she was 61, and commented that ‘a lot of thought’ had gone into it.