Writer Helen Beaglehole will be in conversation with curator Julia Waite at Te Tuhi. They will discuss Beaglehole's book Light and Reflections: the house and the art in our lives.
Light and Reflections is a story of a home filled with contemporary New Zealand art and the family who collected it over two generations and nearly ninety years. It’s a story that is both quietly domestic and culturally significant – for while much has been written about our leading artists, little has been documented of the lives of their work in private collections and the people who live alongside them. Author Helen Beaglehole and photographer Matthew O’Reilly open the red front door of the Beaglehole home in Messines Road, Karori, and invite readers to experience a singular collection, the fall of light in the rooms and the reflections that arise.
Copies of Light and Reflections: the house and the art in our lives will be available for purchase at the event.
About the speakers
Helen Beaglehole is a Wellington writer, editor and historian, whose books include: One Hundred Havens: The settlement of the Marlborough Sounds and Lighting the Coast: A history of New Zealand’s coastal lighthouse system. She is an award-winning children’s author and a contributor to the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography and Te Ara encyclopedia. Beaglehole’s passion for collecting art that she shared with her husband, Tim, inspired Light and Reflections.
Julia Waite is curator, New Zealand art at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Her research interests are focused on the development of modern art in New Zealand and global modernisms. In 2015 Waite curated the touring exhibition Freedom and Structure: Cubism and New Zealand Art 1930– 1960, which revealed the impacts of Cubism on three artists and repositioned Colin McCahon in a wider network. Past projects she has co-curated include Gordon Walters: New Vision (2018) and Louise Henderson: From Life (2019). In 2021 she curated the survey Bill Culbert: Slow Wonder. Waite is currently working on a PhD, researching the work of post-war weavers and investigating the relationship between weaving and abstraction.
How to get to Te Tuhi
To ensure easy navigation through the Eastern Busway Construction, and to get to the best parking options close to Te Tuhi’s main entrance, please follow your navigation app’s directions to 21 William Roberts Road.