Rhona Haszard an Experimental Expatriate New Zealand Artist By Joanne Drayton.

Published by Canterbury University Press, 2002, first edition.

Softback in near new condition, no inscriptions.

160 pages, colour and b&w illustrations.

Haszard was clearly talented, her paintings a form of modernism which was acceptable but also really rather lovely. She married an art teacher, Ronald McKenzie but, very soon after, met her nemesis: a relatively sophisticated, if opinionated, Englishman, Leslie Greener. Haszard was swept off her feet and out of her marriage, somehow overlooking how scandalous this would be, particularly in the socially moribund Christchurch of the period.
Haszard and her new husband were eventually catapulted out of the country and went to France and England in search of fame and Art with a capital "A". What follows is an oft-told tale.
Talented artist ekes out living in inclement city, usually on the borders of the famous and smart. He or she creates, against all odds, good art, but also suffers self-doubt and bad health.
The interesting thing is how deeply conditional Haszard's success was on being rebroadcast back home. This seems to me curiously like many contemporary New Zealand-born artists who have a modicum of success overseas but who are really kept alive by the response of the culture they were born into, despite their firm decision not to live "at home".
Haszard had some success, both here and abroad. But eventually, at the astonishingly young age of 30, she "fell" from a tower and killed herself. A mystery still surrounds her death. Her marriage was unhappy, her own sense of self slippery. Really, in the end, what remains are her pictures - lovely, modern, clever, full of talent.

ALL PHOTOS ARE OF THE ACTUAL BOOK.

All books are sent with free courier postage within New Zealand.

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