PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Auckland

This painting is a conversation between nine stylish partygoers. They are in the same room, but lost in their own worlds: four couples arranged within a tight picture plane busy kissing, dancing and leaning into each other - and one solitary face cropped in the left foreground. As viewers, we are invited to enjoy this spectacle for the sake of it, to examine and compare the relationships between these people.

Given Louise Henderson's contribution to New Zealand landscape painting and cubism, it can be easy to forget her origin story. She was born and raised in Paris, and moved to New Zealand in her early 20s with her husband. By that point, she had completed formal training as a designer. The artist returned to Paris for a year in 1952 in pursuit of a modern art education. The Party is one example of a work that clearly calls back to her French roots.

With slightly blurred, elegant faces all looking in different directions, it has the spirit of a Renoir. It is chic and lively, and one can well imagine the scene taking place in Paris. At the same time, it is distinctly modern, and distinctly Henderson. The work's beauty is in the finest details of faceted space and bodies pressed against one other: the delicately blurred arrangement of a floral headpiece, for example, or a sculpted calf plunging solidly into the foreground.

The first major survey of Louise Henderson work: From Life was held 2 November 2019 until 20 March 2020 at Auckland Art Gallery. It featured work from across Henderson's seven-decade career, the exhibition traces the development of the artist's bold and colourful abstract style.