Ans Westra Holland, New Zealand, 1936-2023
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About Ans Westra
Known to all as Ans, Anna Jacoba Westra was born in the Dutch city of Leiden. In the early 1950s she moved to Rotterdam and in 1957 graduated with a diploma in arts and craft teaching. She migrated to New Zealand in 1957 at the age of 21, eventually basing herself in Wellington. Once there, she joined the Wellington Camera Club and Ngati Poneke. In 1986 she won the Pacific section of the Commonwealth Photograph Award, taking her to London to exhibit with other documentary photographers. Many more publications, residencies, grants and more recently exhibitions followed. In 1982 the Alexander Turnbull Library established an archive of Westra's work in Wellington. Handbook, Ans Westra Photographs, an exhibition and major book was published in 2004 and toured around New Zealand as well as being shown in Leiden at Volkenkunde museum. In December 2019 she had an exhibition at the Anastasia Gallery in New York. In 2006 a documentary was made about the artist called Ans Westra: Private journeys/public thoughts, and in 2007 she was made an Arts Foundation Icon. In 2015 she received an honorary doctorate from Massey University in recognition of her long-standing contribution to New Zealand visual art. Ans Westra passed away on February 26, 2023. She was a pioneer of documentary photography in New Zealand, and one of the first women to work in this area in Aotearoa New Zealand and spent long periods of time traveling around the country as a full-time freelance documentary photographer committed to observing and candidly documenting New Zealand life and culture.
In our database, 186 works by Ans Westra are listed as being offered for sale, the earliest in 2003, of which 118 (63%) were sold. The highest price recorded for the artist is $20,470 for Whakarewarewa, Rotorua sold by Webb's in November 2021. This year 12 works have been offered for sale. Works by Ans Westra are held by the Museum Of New Zealand, Auckland Art Gallery and a further two major public national galleries (see list below).
Ans Westra is listed in the following standard biographical references:
- The Find New Zealand Artists web site: a database of artist names that directs researchers to the rich resources found in New Zealand's libraries, art society exhibition histories and published sources.
The Australian Art Sales Digest is a database of over 610,000 works by more than 12,000 artists who are listed as having either lived or worked in Australia or New Zealand, and an additional 36,000 foreign and other artists, offered for sale by auction in Australia and New Zealand from the early 1970s to the present day.
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