Juliet Peter

Aotearoa New Zealand, b.1915, d.2010

Eileen Cowan

  • pencil, charcoal and gouache
  • Gift of Jo McCullough 2014
  • 710 x 540mm
  • 2014/013

Eileen Cowan was the mother of artist Roy Cowan, and Juliet Peter’s mother-in-law. Eileen Cowan’s mother was Mary Rachel Robson, also known as Mere Kapa Ngamai II, and her father was the poet and Māori scholar Henry Hare Hongi Mathew Stowell. This deftly worked portrait reflects the deep affection that existed between the artist and her subject, who sits on a garden bench amidst a profusion of summer flowers, with knitting needles and wool on her lap and a butterfly momentarily resting on her cardigan.

(Turn, Turn, Turn: A Year in Art, 27 July 2019 – 8 March 2020)