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Ans Westra/Stuff
Artist and photographer Ans Westra has died. She was 86.
Photographer Ans Westra, best known for her work capturing the nation’s cultural and generational changes on film, has died aged 86.
The {Suite} Art Gallery confirmed that the artist passed away at her home in Wellington on Sunday.
“Anna Jacobs (Ans) Westra was a pioneer of documentary photography, and one of the first woman to work in this area in Aotearoa New Zealand,” a statement released on Sunday evening said.
Ans Westra/Stuff
Portrait by Ans Westra.
Westra is well known for her evocative black and white photos of ordinary kiwi life, especially in some of Aotearoa’s most remote settlements.
The Dutch photographer was born in 1936 migrated to New Zealand when she was 21 and chronicled New Zealand for decades.
Ans Westra/{Suite} Gallery
Ruatoria, 1963, from the controversial Washday at the Pa book by Ans Westra.
She’s the mother of three adult children, six grandchildren and lives in Wellington.
The self-taught artist spent long periods of time travelling around the country as a full-time freelance documentary photographer.
{Suite} director and manager David Alsop and the National Library of New Zealand started digitising 150,000 of Westra’s images in 2017 to ensure they continue as a historic documentation during one of the most transitional times of New Zealand history.
ANS WESTRA/Stuff
Photograph of the Rātana Church taken on 25 January 1964 by Ans Westra.
More to come.
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