Ans Westra

Ans Westra is one of New Zealand’s best known social documentary photographers. Westra was born in Leiden, Netherlands in 1936 and qualified as an arts and crafts teacher in Rotterdam. In 1954 she began taking photographs as a hobby, inspired by New York’s Museum of Modern Art landmark touring exhibition The Family of Man. In 1957, aged twenty-one, she arrived in New Zealand to visit her father, who had earlier migrated to this country. Westra became known for her images of Māori and it was a School Bulletin publication, Washday at the Pa, that propelled her to national attention in 1964 when it was controversially withdrawn from distribution by the government. This was in response to claims that it reinforced a stereotype of Māori as living in underprivileged circumstances. It was true that the family Westra photographed were materially poor but what the critics overlooked was how Westra captured the warmth of family life and the rich and happy existence of its children. Source: Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/topic/953

It is with great sadness that we announce that Ans Westra passed away at her home in Wellington on 26 February 2023 aged 86 years. Anna Jacoba (Ans) Westra CNZM was a pioneer of documentary photography, and one of the first women to work in this area in Aotearoa New Zealand. Born in 1936 in Leiden, Netherlands, Ans immigrated to New Zealand in 1957 at the age of 21, eventually basing herself in Wellington. Self-taught, Ans 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 1998 Westra was awarded the Companion of the Order of New Zealand Merit for services to photography. A major exhibition of her work, Handboek: Ans Westra photographs, opened at the National Library Gallery in 2004 with an accompanying book and film, the exhibition was also shown at major centres around the country before travelling to the Museum voor Volkenkunde in Leiden.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, an honour bestowed to a living circle of 20 New Zealand artists for their extraordinary lifetime achievements. In 2015 she received an honorary doctorate from Massey University in recognition of her long-standing contribution to New Zealand’s visual culture. Our thoughts are with Ans’ half-sister, three children and six grandchildren. Source: https://www.facebook.com/suitegallery