Born in Leiden, the Netherlands in 1936, Ans Westra began her
self-taught photographic career in 1952, producing her first
documentary series in 1956. In 1957 she graduated with a Diploma in
Arts & Crafts Teaching from the Industrie School, Rotterdam and
in the same year immigrated to New Zealand, where she proceeded to
develop a career in photography that has spanned over 50 years.
As a practiced photographer and new immigrant to NZ, Westra
quickly became enamoured with the culture of both urban and rural
Maori; her work reflecting this excitement and intrigue. As she
explained, "Maori were wonderful to photograph because they're just
spontaneous and natural, just the most colourful and interesting
thing in this country at the time."
[1]
Westra's early career in NZ was dominated by her freelance
social documentary work for the NZ Government. She contributed
regularly to Te Ao Hou - a magazine published by the
Department of Maori Affairs - and was also commissioned to produce
work for the Department of Education. This commission resulted in
the publication of her seminal and controversial 1964 work
Washday at the Pa, a powerful, non-fiction photographic
essay concerning the life of a rural Maori family with nine
children. Washday at the Pa sparked a debate that was
largely cultural rather than artistic - the book was eventually
recalled and thousands of copies shredded over fears that its
depiction of Maori would promote a cultural stereotype.
[1] Damian Skinner: The Eye of an Outsider: A conversation with
Ans Westra, Art New Zealand, Issue 100, Spring 2001.
Nonetheless, Washday at the Pa became regarded as
a fundamental step forward in New Zealand photography, since the
underlying notion that a body of photographic work could produce
such emotive reaction was new ground to a New Zealand public
unfamiliar with photography as an artistic medium.
Westra's work with Maori subjects has long been celebrated for
its honesty and lack of prejudice and her penchant for social
documentary defines much of her core body of work. Nonetheless, her
affinity for statement and narrative in photography, coupled with
her technical expertise, has led her to explore other subjects and
stylistic areas of the medium with equal success.
As a result of her long and distinguished career, Westra is now
renowned as one of New Zealand's most prominent realist and social
documentary photographers and is venerated amongst her peers for
her part in building the image of photography as a viable artistic
medium in NZ. She has held numerous exhibitions in New
Zealand and across the globe and occupies a pivotal place in the
New Zealand photography lexicon alongside such luminaries as
Laurence Aberhart and Peter Peryer, Robin Morrison and Marti
Friedlander. In 1998, Westra was made a Companion of the New
Zealand Order of Merit for her services to Photography and the Arts
in New Zealand and in 2007 she was presented with the NZ Arts
Foundation Icon Award. The 2004 survey exhibition (and subsequent
publication) Handboek stands as one of New Zealand's most
extensive retrospectives: over 130 images selected from 48,000
negatives held in the Ans Westra archives at the National Library
creating a compelling testament to Westra's talent and
influence.