Janet Abbott

My Favourite
Elizabeth Kelly's Margaret

Elizabeth Kelly's Margaret

Many of us have works of art that are favourites, and these are often works that resonate with us or speak to us in some way. Margaret is one of those works for me. The portrait spends most of its time safely in storage at the art gallery but, for the summer of 1996–7, it and twenty-two other portraits by Elizabeth Kelly were shown at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery – Margaret graced the cover of the catalogue. The show brought a small flurry of excitement around Christchurch and, about sixty years after she had sat for her portrait, Margaret turned up to the show.