RITA ANGUS was a private person when she painted some of New Zealand’s most important art works.

So what would she think about thousands of people having a long look at more than 200 of her water colour and oil portraits and landscapes?

She would have loved it, says her long-time friend, photographer Marti Friedlander, of the Angus exhibition at Te Papa in Wellington, so far viewed by 47,000 people.

“Here, on the walls of this exhibition, this is her legacy to all of us,” said Ms Friedlander at a panel discussion at the museum. “I felt how much Rita herself would have loved walking around it.”

Te Papa is celebrating its 10th anniversary and the centenary of the artist’s birth with a free exhibition of Rita Angus works, which include sketches, unfinished pieces, and letters.

Marti Friedlander and two other friends of Rita Angus – artist Jacqueline Fahey and author/publisher Christine Cole Catley – joined in the panel discussion as part of Te Papa’s monthly Art After Dark series.

“What struck me with the self portraits is the total honesty with which she sees herself,” Ms Friedlander told the audience. “She understood the struggle of the artist.”

Ms Fahey said gender politics were rife in art, where the often repeated male view was that “the pram in the hallway was the death of art for women artists”.

Rita Angus’s gift to the art community was “good painting and establishing for women that painting is a serious pursuit”.

Christine Cole Catley described the artist as a warm, intelligent woman and an exciting person, who back at the time showed a lot of courage.

“She was a marvellous, brave woman. She put up with so much, but she wouldn’t let a day go past without doing what she determined she would do that day in her studio.”

Rita Angus is described as a feminist and a pacifist, and during the 1940s and 1950s in New Zealand such views were not popular.

Jill Trevelyan, co-curator of the exhibition and author of the biography, Rita Angus: An Artist’s Life, says reconciling the private and personal discoveries of the artist’s life with the current public exposure was a challenge.

“It was something I really grappled with in the early stages. When I found her letters, I just felt they were far too personal.  Then I started to think that the information could sustain a compassionate biography.  An artist’s reputation depends on publication and exhibition….the information in her letters reflects so directly on her art.”

Further Art After Dark events are planned at Te Papa on August 21 and September 18. The Angus display is on until October 5 and will then tour to Dunedin, Christchurch and Auckland.

PICTURE: Self-portrait, 1967-68 by Rita Angus, oil on hardboard, private collection. Reproduced courtesy of the Rita Angus Estate.